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9324-8 





THE ART OF SEEING 


"C1 jo Aog ew AG ‘assOF{ OY} CUINATY puke JOIIeYyD MW ayy I 


SET AoyQ ADL 


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THE ART OF SEEING 


MENTAL TRAINING THROUGH DRAWING 


BY 
CHARLES HERBERT WOODBURY, N. A. 


AND 


ELIZABETH WARD PERKINS 


CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 


NEW YORK CHICAGO BOSTON 
ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO 


COPYRIGHT, 1925, By 
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 





Printed in the United States of America 





“ + ii 


“HOW FROM AGE TO AGE THE ART OF PAINTING CON- 


TINUALLY DECLINES AND DETERIORATES WHEN PAINT- 
ERS HAVE NO OTHER STANDARD THAN WORK ALREADY 
DONE. 


“The painter will produce pictures of little merit if he 
takes the works of others as his standard; but if he will apply 
himself to learn from the objects of nature he will produce 
good results. This we see was the case with the painters 
who came after the time of the Romans, for they continu- 
ally imitated each other, and from age to age their art 
steadily declined. 

“After these came Giotto, the Florentine, and he—reared 
in mountain solitudes, inhabited only by goats and such 
like beasts—turning straight from nature to his art, began 
to draw on the rocks the movements of the goats which he 
was tending, and so began to draw the figures of all the 
animals which were to be found in the country in such a 
way that after much study he not only surpassed the masters 
of his own time but all those of many preceding centuries. 
After him art again declined, because all were imitating 
paintings already done; and so for centuries it continued 
to decline until such time as Tommaso the Florentine, 
nicknamed Masaccio, showed by the perfection of his work 
how those who took as their standard anything other than 
nature, the supreme guide of all the masters, were weary- 


_ing themselves in vain. Similarly I would say as to these 


mathematical subjects, that those who study only the au- 
thorities and not the works of nature are in art the grand- 


vl 


sons and not the sons of nature, which is the supreme guide 
of the good authorities. 

‘“Mark the supreme folly of those who censure such as 
learn from nature, leaving uncensured the authorities who 
were the disciples of this same nature !”’ 

LEONARDO DA VINCI. 


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 


The Elements of Design have been adapted from the 
theories of Doctor Denman Ross in the Syllabus for Drawing 
used in the public schools of Boston. 

The adaptation has been executed by Mrs. Theodore 
Andrews, in connection with her Saturday Class at the Chil- 
dren’s Art Centre, Rutland Street, Boston. Many of the 
drawings which illustrate the book were made by the chil- 
dren of that class. . 

The drawings of kindergarten age were done by the chil- 
dren at the kindergartens of the Froebel League and the 
New York Kindergarten Association in the city of New 
York. 

Mrs. John Johansen, of New York, most kindly allowed 
the use of the Japanese illustrations, which were photo- 
graphed from one of her books. 





CONTENTS 


EA. 


GENERAL PURPOSE OF A COURSE IN OBSERVATION . 


GENERAL PRACTICE OF A COURSE IN OBSERVATION 


TABLE SHOWING SUBJECT-MATTER OF A COURSE IN OB- 


PARP OL 


SERVATION 


OUTLINE OF THE MEANS USED IN A COURSE IN OBSERVA- 


TION. 


TEACHING BY CAUSE AND EFFECT 


TEACHING BY DRAMATIZATION 


PART III 


DIRECTION 


I. 


2. 


3: 


LINE STORIES . 
MEASURE 


VERTICAL AND HORIZONTAL . 


REPRESENTATION 


I. 


os ae Fe 


ACTION FIGURES 


EvEerRyY-DAy PERSPECTIVE 


MEMORY DRAWING AND INFORMATION DRAWING . 


MODELLING 


LIGHT AND SHADE 


EAR ALN 


SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHERS, INTERMEDIATE GRADES . 


APPLICATION OF MEANS TO INTERMEDIATE GRADES 


1X 


PAGE 


21 


22 
30 
42 


57 
69 
76 


89 
109 
132 
148 
153 


161 
167 


Xx CONTENTS 


MEMORY DRAWING IN INTERMEDIATE GRADES 


MENTAL TRAINING THROUGH DRAWING FOR ADULTS 


PART V 
TyPE MONTH FOR THE KINDERGARTEN 
NORMAL SCHEDULE 
TYPE WEEK FOR PRIMARY GRADES . 
TYPE WEEK FOR INTERMEDIATE GRADES 5 AND 6 
TypPE WEEK FOR INTERMEDIATE GRADES 7, 8, AND 9 


REVIEW PRACTICE FOR THE END OF THE YEAR 


ABNORMAL SCHEDULE 
TYPE YEAR FOR INTERMEDIATE GRADES 5 AND 6 . 


TYPE YEAR FOR INTERMEDIATE GRADES 7, 8, AND 9 


RESULTS TO BE EXPECTED 
AFTER ONE YEAR IN THE KINDERGARTEN 
AT THE END OF THE KINDERGARTEN PERIOD 
AFTER ONE YEAR IN THE PRIMARY GRADES 
AT THE END OF THE PRIMARY PERIOD 
AFTER ONE YEAR IN THE INTERMEDIATE GRADES . 


AT THE END OF THE INTERMEDIATE PERIOD 


PART VI 
ELEMENTS OF COMPOSITION 
ELEMENTS OF DESIGN 


ELEMENTS OF COLOR 


INDEX "G37. 44 eee 


PAGE 


178 
183 


195 
197 
198 
198 


199 
201 


203 
207 
210 
OME 
oi 


221 


oat 
244 
279 


289 


FIG, 


on 


II. 


12. 


ay 


14. 


Gt 


TG. 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


The Air Chariot and ya ie the Horse. By a boy 


cieh soe el). . . Frontispiece 


Trees Altrating. Cause and Effect Teechitig By 
children from 5 to 16 anki 


The Fatal Dance of Salome. By a boy of 14. 
Diagram for Line Stories 


Flags Illustrating Results of Exercise in Line Stories. 
By children of 3 and 4 


Diagram for Action Figures . 

Japanese Diagram for Action Figures . 
Action Figures Stories. By two boys of 4 
Action Figures Stories. By two boys of 4 


Illustrations with Single-Line Action Figures. By a 
boy of 14 

Showing Transition from Single to Double Line in Ac- 
tion Figures. By children of 13 and 14 


Showing Transition from Double-Line Action Fig- 
ures to Clothed Action Figures. By children of 13 
and 14 atte he: 


Illustrating Problems in Every-Day Perspective, 
I. By two boys of 13 . 


Illustrating Problems in Every-Day Sea 
II. By children of 11 and 16 


Memory Drawings Made Before and After Train- 
ing. By children of 3 and4 . ne 


Memory Sequence, I. By aboyof6 . 


xi 


PAGE 


Se 
41 
59 


77 
90 
gI 
94 
95 


IOI 


103 


105 


LET 


Pai 


I3I 
139 . 


Xil 


FIG. 


1 Firge 
18. 


19. 


20. 
21; 
22: 
22. 
24. 
25. 
26. 
a 


28. 
29. 
30. 


ais 
23: 
33, 

34. 


35: 


36. 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Memory Sequence, II. By a girl of 8 . 
Drawing in Light and Shade. By a girl of 14 


Figures in Few Lines, Passing from Action Figures 
to Action Lines. By children of 14 . 


Memory Drawing of Live Animals. By a girl of 14. 
Altered Poses, Drawn from Memory. By a girl of 16 
Illustrations for Stories. By children of 14 

Memory Sequence. By an adult of over 70 . 
Illustration with Use of Action Lines. By a girl of 14 
Illustration with Use of Action Lines. By a boy of 14 
Illustrating Subconscious Memory. By a girl of 16 


Memory Sequence Drawings of Animals in Motion. 
By a girl of 8 


Memory Sequence Drawings of Animals in Motion. 
By a boy of 16 . 


Memory Sequence Drawings of Animals in Motion. 
By a girl of 17 


Vertical and Horizontal Examples ie Lesson 
No. I in Design 


Oblique Examples Illustrating Lesson No. 2 in Design 
Square Examples Illustrating Lesson No. 3 in Design 
Oblong Examples Illustrating Lesson No. 4 in Design 


Triangular Examples Illustrating Lesson No. 5 in De- 
sign 

Circular Examples Illustrating Lesson No. 6 in De- 
sign iy x Pes ee SOUL oe 

Half-Circle Examples Illustrating Lesson No. 7 in 
Design 


PAGE 


145 
152 


163 
168 
169 
179 
185 
218 
219 


224 
225 
226 
227 


261 
263 
265 
267 
269 


271 


273 





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_ The name changes with change of country. 
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Leonardo da Vinct, , 
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. " F ra 
Oars 
4 
' - be : 
ree, . 
ap A ae 
y r Oe ag wl , fa ny _~ a fe 
' Vb ie Laie 7 q Dg! ‘ 7 


GENERAL PURPOSE OF A COURSE IN 
OBSERVATION 


Among our most valued possessions is a simple faith in 
the reliability of our eyes. It is common to hear a person 
say “‘I know what I see,’’ and so establish a fact beyond 
question, the supposition being that eyesight is a positive 
thing, however much mere opinions may differ. To doubt 
the eyes is to most people an assault on the intelligence 
wholly unjustified by reason of the definiteness of sight. 
This instinctive resentment unfortunately has only too much 
basis in fact. The intelligence is doubted, but, more than 
that, the accuracy of the eyes as well. The process of see- 
ing is not the simple one of directing the eyes at a special 
spot and getting a correct and literal visual image as a 
result. 

Whatever the image may be on the retina of the eye, 
consciousness of it must lie in the mind, and it is there that 
the final conclusion is formed. If the mind is dulled or 
preoccupied, or by any reason unable to take a fresh im- 
pression, the visual image will be imperfectly recorded, 
whatever sight may ‘offer, and the thought of the image 
will take the place of what we have physically seen. It 
matters very little to us what our eyes give us if we are 
unaware of it, for a visual image is of no service until it 
has been recorded by the brain. The fortunate man is the 
one who knows what he sees because his mind is so open 
as to take the new facts as they come before him. 

To the majority of people, seeing is largely a matter of 
habit. After the first few years, when the world is strange 


and we have much to discover, we reach the period when 
3 


é THE ART OF SEEING 


we can classify. It is then we begin to see what we know, 
confusing what may be before us at the moment with the 
memory of similar occasions. 

We do not take the trouble to look unless we have spe- 
cial interest in doing so—the tree is a tree to us with none 
of the personal characteristics it might have if we really 
looked. We live in surroundings of generalized form. Even 
when our interest is given to an object, the habit of casual 
sight is strong, and it is necessary to clear the mind of pre- 
conceived ideas in order to receive a fresh impression. 
Trained sight is impossible without an open mind. 

The problem of sight-training is very different from that 
involved in the training of the hand, for the eyes themselves 
are less to be considered than the mind. We learn to see 
better mentally rather than physically, and all of our ef- 
fort has to be directed to this end. The value of Observa- 
tion lies in the accurate information we acquire for the use 
of the mind, which sorts it, and chooses and builds from it 
constructive thought. 

The Course in Observation follows closely the natural 
development of the mind, and builds on experience as it is 
gained little by little. It would be useless to require any- 
thing beyond the mental reach of the student; such work, 
though it might be mechanically adequate, would be lacking 
in all of the quality of personal expression. 

We see this plainly in the dull drawings so often made 
from casts where the only object has been to imitate the 
light and shade without appreciation of the beauty of line 
or of the quality of falling light. When we compare such 
drawings with the far cruder attempts of some child to tell 
his own story in line or color, there is no question as to 
which has a real interest. As a matter of technic there 
would be no comparison between the cast drawing and the 


GENERAL PURPOSE 5 


childish attempt, but there the superiority stops, for mere 
imitation is inferior as a motive and is only a means for 
which the end is lacking. 

Technic itself is a method of expression, good or bad, 
as it accomplishes its object. We may have great admira- 
tion for a skilful technic; but it must accomplish its purpose, 
or it has no general value. There is no virtue in bad tech- 
nic of any kind, for it fails in the most important element 
of clear expression. Logically one might assume that it 
would be necessary to have something to say before it could 
be said, and we might expect the means to follow the 
thought as the need develops. 

The aim of the Course in Observation is to train the 
vision from the mental side, increasing the accuracy of sight 
at the same time, and furnishing the student with the 
means for putting his thought in simple line or color. Al- 
though he may use the same material as the artist, it is 
not necessary that his accomplishment be measured by the 
standards of Art. 

There is a common belief that a drawing of any kind must 
have some connection with Art, and it is judged accord- 
ingly. The remote relationship is there, but it is no nearer 
than that of an ordinary letter to Literature. An early 
drawing or one made by a person not specially gifted should 
be taken as a simple graphic statement, adequate if under- 
standable, but not to be tested by a standard beyond its 
purpose. | 

The Course in Observation starts at a point where even 
at the age of a few years the children have already gained 
some general experience. They have accumulated a certain 
amount of information and have interests and opinions. 
Drawing is one of their natural modes of expression. Their 
drawings are at first arbitrary, a matter of marks only, 


6 THE ART OF SEEING 


which have meaning to them and give them something 
visible to which to pin their thought; but they are unin- 
telligible to any one else. Following this period will come the 
time when they wish to say something that can be under- 
stood, and for this they must use a language based on our 
common habits of sight. 

The normal order of the development of the mind gives 
a logical sequence of steps toward graphic expression. The 
first conscious and intended motion a baby makes is to 
reach for something, either a light or some object that has 
attracted his interest. He recognizes a world outside of 
himself, and, by fixing his attention on some special spot, he 
has his first experience with direction. His general desire 
to touch is the reason for the gesture, but the attainment 
of his object must wait on information, for he has no knowl- 
edge of measure. 

Direction and measure together connect us with the uni- 
verse, and they must be the foundation of whatever phys- 
ical relation we have with it. Without direction and meas- 
ure there is neither mind nor matter, for there is no direc- 
tion without consciousness, nor matter without dimension. 
A line in the abstract sense stands for direction and meas- 
ure, and is represented either in mathematical terms or in 
drawing. 

It is not to be supposed that a simple drawn line can 
have intrinsic interest in itself. However necessary it may 
be to acquire the skill to make it and to gain an obedient 
hand, the process is simplified if the line can be identified 
with some personal interest. This can be done at an early 
stage, as small children have no idea at first how objects 
look, and their interest lies in what is happening. It is 
simple to give the thought of line as a graphic gesture and 
represent with it motion, direction, and the action of a 


GENERAL PURPOSE ‘aL 


story. A point for the place of the child, another for the 
object, and the two connected by a line would typify the 
action of reaching. Practically, it is drawing a straight line 
from point to point and would be a dull CORMAN if it 
had no personal significance. 

The value in this training lies chiefly in the fact that the 
attention must be given to the definite limits of the line; 
mental vagueness brings failure. Incidentally, the power to 
draw an accurate line is quickly acquired, even in the case 
of very young children. It will be generally found that 
skill of hand is quite as much a matter of skilled mental 
direction as of actual manual dexterity. The thought comes 
before the act. If the thought is vague, the hand, unless in 
case of long habit, will be ineffective. The use of any tool 
or technic is more quickly learned if there is a definite need 
for it. 


In the Course in Observation the mental side of technic 
is considered of first importance, and the hand-training is 


expected to follow as a logical result. The line stories have 
little to do with sight, but they give a training in accuracy 
of thought and conscious intention, and at the same time 
make use of a graphic language as a way of telling of a 
personal interest. 

When we pass from the use of line as a symbol to employ- 
ing it for the purposes of representing the appearance of 
objects, the whole mental attitude has changed, and we 
add another element to direction and measure. We then 
state the condition under which we live, which is that of 
three dimensions, and the resulting solid we call mass. In 
our drawing we have two of these dimensions, and the third 
is only implied. 

It is this implied dimension that taxes all of our visual 
experience. We can only express it by the well-known re- 


8 THE ART OF SEEING 


sults of its presence. A solid, for instance, under conditions 
of direct light, must cast a shadow; and a cast shadow even 
without further description of the form will, in some cases, 
imply the solid. We know this in the case of lettering which 
is drawn with shadow only; the solid letters seem to stand 
in relief though the actual contour has not been drawn. 

In a general way we see results and recognize by our ex- 
perience what must have caused them. The intelligent 
study of what we see must give first place to cause, for in a 
minor way we are creating the object we draw, stating by 
the results we describe some form which in the material 
world would have corresponding mass. If our result is il- 
logical the cause is impossible. A shadow in the wrong place, 
for instance, might describe a face that no one would care 
to claim. 

The fact of mass is experienced by a baby on his first in- 
dependent expedition about the room, and he gradually 
acquires an idea of the limits of the objects which obstruct 
him. Later, these objects become form to him with special 
individual characteristics. The general impulse when we 
begin to draw is to return to this original experience and 
think of the boundary of the mass, rather than how it may 
look. It is always difficult to pass from the thought of the 
isolated object as represented by outline to its appearance 
as affected by light, but we have again as an aid the 
thought of cause. With that in our mind the problem sim- 
plifies itself. 

We all know that most objects we see have a light side 
and a dark side, and from general experience, without refer- 
ence to light as a cause, we might conclude that fact to be 
one of the ways of solids. The information would be valu- 
able, but a great amount of looking would be required be- 
fore another fact could be added. All solids do not have 


GENERAL PURPOSE 9 


shadows as we see them, and there are many minor varia- 
tions between light and shadow which will not be classified. 
Cause is the only possible clue, and it will save misspent 
years. 

Observation is constructive looking, not mere curiosity, 
but examination for a purpose with reference to both cause 
and effect. It is not the attempt to memorize a visual 
image after the manner of the Chinese, who are forced to 
learn four thousand characters before the classics may be 
read, but rather from the beginning of the training it is 
the search for the laws of nature and man. 

It must be realized that drawing as it is used in the 
following Course is intended to serve a double purpose. It 
is not for the sake of making a picture, as we generally un- 
derstand the word, or even as an artistic attempt; though 
it will lay a firm foundation for both. The main objects 
are the mental training in accuracy of thought necessary 
for real observation, and the measure of that thought 
given by the attempt to express it. The principles involved 
are so universal that mental habits are formed which are 
of the greatest value in all other studies. 

To sum up, we have a mental state caused by a visual 
experience which we wish to describe to others without 
words, but through general appearances. The artist would 
have more to say of his visual experience than we, for he 
has knowledge of its larger value, and his emotional reac- 
tions are keener, but we are following his path and acquir- 
ing material which will lead to an understanding of his 
superior attempt. 

Whatever the attainment of the student may be, it is 
necessary that he should know what he sees, why he sees it, 
and what is worth seeing. 


GENERAL PRACTICE OF A COURSE IN 
OBSERVATION | 


There are two ways by which the mental place of a hu- 
man being may be readily discovered, whether child or 
adult—through words, spoken or written, and through 
drawing. Each externalizes thought in a different manner, 
and both are necessary for complete expression. 

Drawing is frequently a clearer test than oral or written 
words, because in order to draw with any result there must 
be a clear conception beneath the imperfections of expres- 
sion. Confusion betrays itself more directly in line than 
through words. 

Communication by means of drawing may become as im- 
portant a way for self-expression in daily life as speaking or 
writing, and should be taken much as we take speech, as a 
natural method of expressing a thought. No quicker de- 
velopment should be expected in drawing than in the use of 
words when learning a language. There will be but few re- 
sults until the foundation is thoroughly laid, but if the 
teaching is consistent and the large principles followed, 
pupils of any age will be able to describe in line and in color 
whatever has impressed them in the day’s work and play 
at home or in travel abroad. Communication is the essen- 
tial point. People should look at their own and each other’s 
drawings as though reading a story. 

When men and women are trained to use a universal 
graphic language freely, both in business and in leisure, a 
great public will have been formed competent to recognize 

10 


GENERAL PRACTICE 11 


and encourage talent and to require a living art in their 
-houses and public buildings, their monuments and _ their 
schools. A generation can be so trained to observe and 
know what and why they see, that the intention of the 
painter will be recognized and his performance accepted 
in so far as it declares that intention and a vision worth re- 
vealing. 

As a way to make the growing, unaccustomed leisure of 
workers productive and to increase a general power of ob- 
servation, drawing has no superior. And the children of the 
rich who live in cities will learn to use their hands and eyes 
to good purpose through a Course in Observation without 
the necessity of inventing artificial means to give them per- 
sonal responsibility in thought and action. 

The children of no special talent will in later life use the 
‘results of their visual training in drawing and painting as 
opportunities for graphic expression may present themselves 
in the professions, business, and other activities. To draw 
a design, a map, a figure in motion, is often to convince at 
once, to gain time, and to save energy. Facts reach the 
mind through the eyes more promptly and impressively 
than through the other senses. The children of special 
talent, when trained according to a Course in Observation, 
will have nothing to unlearn when they reach the Art School. 

The teachers in our public and private schools are laying 
the foundation for this fulfilment whenever they succeed 
in giving the children an objective measure by which they 
can check up their own powers of increased or diminished 
observation. 

There is no reason why people as a whole should not re- 
ceive direct training in the arts of personal expression and 
the complexities involved be put back where they belong 
in the personal equation of the creative artist. The artistic 


12 THE ART OF SEEING 


sense is not a thing by itself, but the superior development 
of a common quality, and the fog of controversy that hangs 
about the appreciation and teaching of the Fine Arts is, for 
the most part, unnecessary. It is possible for all citizens 
to the degree of their intelligence to draw and paint, and 
to know why one drawing is good, another bad, a third in- 
different, although they cannot penetrate to the sources 
from which final quality arises. 

All conventions tend to close the mind. In the perform- 
ance of many of our daily actions, as habits are subconscious 
conventions, thought is unnecessary and we rightly live by 
convention. But whenever it becomes essential to observe 
and consider, the teacher must be beware of conventions. 
To give a child a final best way of thinking about or doing 
anything involving constructive thought is like putting a 
budding plant in a vacuum and expecting it to grow. 

To see life directly and without preconceived ideas is the 
basis of individual expression. When a person has begun to 
look without fear and to make his personal choice, he is set 
in a direction to develop his full resources. No matter how 
rich in derived material his thought may be, he does not 
begin to increase in the quality of personal taste until his 
mind and his eyes co-ordinate. In science or in the Fine 
Arts the advances are made by those who have vision, who 
see with their minds. We begin early to spoil this possibil- 
ity in children when we let them copy and repeat, using no 
personal effort and taking no mental responsibility. We 
weaken their observation, start them on a long sequence of 
self-deception, and praise them when they reproduce the 
thoughts of others, not realizing that assimilation of ideas 
comes from personal. use alone. 

The few principles on which the Course in Observation is 
based, put into practice, constitute all the equipment that 


GENERAL PRACTICE 13 


the mature artist carries with him. He has no other tools 
at any stage of his career. His originality also depends on 
how faithfully he has looked at the world, unhampered by 
short-cuts and conventions. Beauty as a result expressed 
through the arts is an objective recognition of a relation 
between the great laws of order. There is no easy way by 
which this result can be obtained. 

As we develop a Course in Observation by teaching how 
to see and to express in line and color what is seen, we find 
the essential difference between the older teaching and the 
new to be the emphasis on mental training. The training 
of the mind is put first in the knowledge that an adequate 
technic will follow, instead of training primarily the hand 
in the hope that the mind may follow. We help the pupil 
to direct his attention, that he may learn to see from a 
personal need and therefore think of what he sees; the 
doing to be the result of the thinking and seeing. 

The training of the observation is a cumulative process. 
The power to observe is inherent in the mind, but the range 
of that power depends on use and experience. Our effort 
is to build from the mental place of each person; not to im- 
pose arbitrary ideas and habits, but to start him in a direc- 
tion that will lead to free development of every kind. 

Educators distinguish three stages in young children’s 
mental development. Doctor Dewey calls these stages the 
Manipulative, the Symbolic, and the Realistic stages. In 
the first the children acquaint themselves with the ma- 
terial, generally by breaking or misusing it; in the second 
they fashion each his own personal symbol, using the ma- 
terial but not to convey thought directly; in the third, with 
the wish to communicate, they begin to use the material as 
a vehicle for ideas. When the last stage has been reached, 
unless some way of thinking and seeing better is suggested 


14 THE ART OF SEEING 


to them, they gradually give up all attempt to communicate 
in a graphic language and confine their personal expression 
to words, which as symbols send them back to the second 
stage of development, from which only accident may free 
them in later life. 

Children feel the need for ‘‘realistic’’ expression long be- 
fore they express that need or ask for help. Parents and 
teachers, through a dread of imposing both ideas and tech- 
nic before the children are ready, often miss the very op- 
portunities for which they are waiting. It is evident that 
no child should be forced from the symbolic into the “‘real- 
istic’? stage, but if he lingers in the unconscious use of 
symbols he should have every chance to realize for himself 
that he is not communicating or enjoying the sharing of 
ideas, as are the others in his class. When this opportunity 
is given he will soon feel that his personal symbols are in- 
adequate. 

Drawing and painting, as a measure of observation, a 
training in clear thinking, should be so usual a means of 

ression_as to be fundamental in the curriculum of every 
Observation will use drawing as a universal graphic lan- 
guage in every study that can be reinforced through the 
cultivation of better observation. 

The time element, so great a problem in all schools, will 
be taken care of automatically when the basic value of 
graphic expression as an objective proof of a mental con- 
dition is recognized; for a better quality of thought will be 
obtained in every subject that can be directly co-ordinated 
with observation. Much time is still lost through superficial 
methods which attempt to furnish information on isolated 
subjects, instead of training the mind itself to work in any 
direction and on any subject required. 


GENERAL PRACTICE 15 


Although parents do not expect children to continue a 
training in music or to perfect themselves in a new language 
without lessons, both teachers and parents often express 
surprise when the children in their charge do not observe 
and draw accurately with a minimum of time and attention 
given to the subject. Adults also, after being told that they 
will be able to learn a graphic language, jump to the con- 
clusion that an easy way has been discovered by which they 
can learn to draw. If it is understood from the start that 
the aim of a Course in Observation is mental training, re- 
sults will not be expected until they have been justified by 
close attention and a measure of continuous practice. The 
object of the Course is not to make necessary work easy, 
but to make hard work interesting. 

The attempt is often made to teach appreciation of the 
Fine Arts by furnishing the pupil with historical facts and 
comparisons. In order to appreciate, a personal conclusion 
must be reached. We may apprehend and give full rec- 
ognition to the facts, but until they are connected with 
personal experience we stop short of appreciation. The 
common use of the word implies willing acceptance as well 
as recognition. The facts must be furnished, or no personal 
conclusions can be drawn; but unless the link is supplied be- 
tween the intellectual recognition of pictures, periods, and 
painters, and the spontaneous acceptance involved in per- 
sonal choice, the teaching has failed. 

As great works of art are the result of superior emotion 
and observation, they can only be appreciated by those who 
have observed and felt the experiences of the masters, each 
according to his own efforts and in lesser degree. 

It is obvious that an arbitrary teaching of facts divorced 
from personal experience sets up a false standard and con- 
fuses the public mind. The mental training in drawing 


16 THE ART OF SEEING 


and painting gained through a Course in Observation should 
supply a basis of direct personal experience for a teaching 
in appreciation of the Fine Arts, and give as well a founda- 
tion for the practical arts and sciences by which every man 
must live. 

One of the objects of a Course in Observation is to give 
emphasis to a few principles and balance to their applica- 
tion in such a manner as to present a method for the unify- 
ing of much scattered work in the schools. | ! 

Such a co-ordination of work should present but few diffi- 
culties in the kindergarten, where both the principles and 
the material for the course are already present, even in 
the cases where the necessary balance between hand work 
and the directing of the mind has been lost sight of. The 
standards established in the kindergarten, if continued in 
the primary grades, will produce work of such an order in 
the upper grades that whether the pupils enter the high 
school or begin to support themselves their minds will be 
open to many impressions and activities. 

The Course in Observation can be adapted to suit all the 
conditions for children’s work in connection with museums 
of natural history and of art. It is especially productive in 
museums planned for children, and has been developed in 
connection with such a museum. 

If much of the drawing, painting, and modelling, as well 
as work in design and the appreciation of art, done in 
children’s museums is carried on according to the principles 
and practices of the Course, the mental training will be of a 
superior order and the drawings will show qualities of vigor 
and originality, and a gain in memory. 

In nature work of all descriptions, particularly when 
pursued in camp and field, as by Boy and Girl Scouts, the 
Course will be found to add a new interest and a sense of 


GENERAL PRACTICE 17 


personal responsibility to all observation of plant and ani- 
mal life. 

In the preparation of this Course the effort has been made 
to present principles so directly and simply that they can 
be taught by the grade teacher with supervision. It is ar- 
ranged to leave open many ways for drawing teachers who 
have time and imagination to develop the matter according 
to their own opportunities. If the directions are followed 
faithfully, adequate results for the pupils should be ob- 
tained. 

Throughout the practice the purpose must be held in 
mind: to acquaint the children with the large making of 
the world, with causes and effects, and to establish the 
habit of intelligent observation at all times. 





PART II 


There is no result in nature without a cause; understand the cause 
and you have no need of the experiment. iT bonceda da. Vine 


A COURSE IN OBSERVATION 


MENTAL TRAINING THROUGH DRAWING 


TABLE SHOWING SUBJECT-MATTER 


( Line Stories Lines Symboliz- 
( Direction { Vertical and Horizontal ing Speed and 
| Measure Action 
Motion 
DRAWING Action Figures , Proportion 


Emotion 


| 
Representation Everyday Perspective 
Composition 
Imaginative Drawing 
Memory Drawing with Modelling 
Light and Shade 
| 


Psychological Emphasis in Design 


Design Five Principles of Design 
Simple Geometrical Forms 
COMPOSITION 
ees Color Teaching with Design 


Color Relations 


21 


OUTLINE OF THE MEANS USED IN A 
COURSE IN OBSERVATION 


The Course in Observation is not a new method. It isa 
way by which a few basic principles can find practical ap- 
plication. The Means employed are not arbitrary nor 
necessarily novel. They have been chosen for directness 
in purpose and for human and dynamic qualities. After a 
study of the Means it will be seen that drawing as a proof 
of observation can be used in every school grade, and in 
connection with most of the children’s work—English, his- 
tory, geography, nature study, and even with languages to 
fix a simple vocabulary. Results in drawing should be as 
definite as in writing or reciting. The first requirement 
should be that the pupil has stated his thought clearly. 


Although a thorough training is necessary for supervisors 
and normal teachers of the Woodbury Course in Observation, 
the usual grade teacher who has a good working knowledge 
of educational psychology should be able to teach the course 
under careful supervision. 

It should be possible for parents and all persons in direct 
charge of children, after study of the Course, to give the 
children habits of intelligent observation from the begin- 
ning, and to prevent such drawing as is done in the nursery 
from being repeated by the children, for it fails to reflect 
the development of their interests. 

All the Means can be applied, in intensive form, to older 
students, and excellent results have been obtained from per- 
sons over middle life, who find not only that.they can use 

22 


OUTLINE OF THE MEANS USED 23 


drawing as a language but that their power to observe has 
been greatly increased. 

The Course can be carried on in large classes and in mixed 
classes of varying ages within the usual maximum time al- 
lowed for drawing in the schools. Continuity is a major 
factor in the work if graphic expression is to be used as an 
everyday language. Co-ordination with other studies 
should make it possible that at least one of the Means be 
employed each day, if only for a few minutes. 

We repeat: the object of the Course is to give such train- 
ing that thought may be clearly stated through graphic 
expression and color, and that the means may be supplied 
from the original sources rather than from the accomplished 
work of others. Personal interest, initiative, and responsi- 
_ bility are emphasized, and the attention is directed so that 
the students may learn to think and therefore how to see, 
in the conviction that what the mind can directly conceive 
the hand can do; that is, that technic is the result of think- 
ing and seeing and cannot be separated from the mind. 


The usual impression is that the use of a graphic language 
comes by inspiration or not at all. If a child or an adult, 
having a pencil in his hand and a vague impression in his 
mind, does not succeed at once in making a record of a sub- 
ject the verdict is that he has no talent for drawing. He is 
unlikely. to persevere, as the thought of a language to be 
learned is not in his mind. 

No doubt this impression arises from the fact that the 
rare, talented person appears to draw without thinking. 
The observation and association from which he draws have 
become subconscious habits. He has learned the language 
as the child of English parents learns French when born in 
France, unaware that effort is necessary. Except in these 


24 THE ART OF SEEING 


unusual cases most of us must give the same thought to 
our intention in drawing as we would to learning the words 
by which to express a definite idea in any new language. 

In a modern city few persons realize how much they live 
in preoccupying ideas or emotions, oblivious of the objective 
world except as it serves their predominant interest. In 
these conditions it is not uncommon to find a highly edu- 
cated adult in a city occupation who has never looked at 
an object except to use it. A Course in Observation forces 
such a person to think about objects in order to draw them 
and to open his eyes to an objective world. 

It is evident that no one can draw without thought ween 
a start has been made in directing the attention to the ob- 
servation of light and form. The marks made on paper 
should be taken as a graph of the progress made in obser- 
vation, rather than as an attempt at artistic result. They 
should be read in this sense by both pupil and teacher. 

The materials used in the Course are those ordinarily 
employed for the teaching of drawing and painting, but 
with a few exceptions. Erasing is not allowed, and indelible 
crayon or lithographic pencil serves for drawing. 

Large sheets of unprinted news-paper are used freely. 
As the pupils must compare their records and stories, their 
work should be done only on one side of the paper. 

It is essential when learning to observe through a train- 
ing in drawing or color that the pupils make their. records, 
read their whole thought, and try again. The ability to do 
direct, accurate work is developed in this way. 

The reason for using indelible pencil and taking away 
erasers is to avoid an attempt to draw without any clear 
idea of what is to be accomplished. Many students, and 
even painters, proceed on a vague trial basis, hoping that 
each change will be an improvement, but with no clear idea 


OUTLINE OF THE MEANS USED o5 


or purpose. When plenty of paper and an indelible pencil 
are used, if a subject is badly thought and therefore badly 
seen, the mistake is visible at once, even to its maker, who 
clears his vision and looks again. An analogy in words 
would be an endeavor to correct a sentence before it had 
taken shape with the necessary noun and verb. 

The indelible crayon will be supplemented by pencil and 
charcoal as the pupils advance, but no so-called finished 
drawings are wanted. These close the children’s minds to 
further explorations in the older classes, as do stereotyped 
trees and flowers in the kindergarten. When the children 
are older, and work for a special object is required, some 
erasing may be done. 

An advance student might well profit from copying the 
picture of a master whose ways of expressing thought he 
was anxious to study; but experience makes it certain that 
no mental or technical freedom can be attained through the 
use of frequent minute corrections, either in a direct drawing 
or when making a copy. If copying as a method of training 
led anywhere, the life-copyists in European galleries would 
all be original painters. 

Five years of laboratory experiment have proved that 
the following Means are efficient in carrying out the prin- 
ciples of a Course in Observation, and successful in pre- 
venting a relapse into bad habits and static methods on the 
part of teacher or pupil: 


1. Durection.—Under this heading a ores in 
Line Stories. 
Measure. 
The Vertical and Horizontal. 
2. Action Figures.—Used for 
Motion. 


26 


Am B&W 


7. 


THE ART OF SEEING 


Emotion. 
Proportion. 
Later (at six years old) for 
Everyday Perspective. 
Everyday Perspective. 
Composition. 
Color. 
Memory.—Under this heading 
Drawing and Modelling from Memory in a spe- 
cial balance with direct work. Such direct 
drawing is called, for convenience, ‘“‘Infor- 
mation Drawing.” 
Light and Shade.—On a basis of teaching in Cause 
and Effect. 


When applied consistently the Means give the olla 
results to the work of every pupil: 


Gy 
2. 
3- 


4 
st 
6. 


7° 


Sureness and Quality to the line. 

Feeling and Proportion to the figures. 

A reasonable Perspective, and therefore added inter- 
est, to the pictures. 


‘\. The Elements of Composition. 


A knowledge of Color Relations. 

A logical development in Memory Drawing that 
strengthens observation for every purpose and 
gives a foundation for vital Design. 

A further increase in Observation through the Study 
of Light and Shade with the thought of Light as a 
Cause. 


The training in straight lines, always connected with a 
story, is not for the value of the lines themselves, but tc 


OUTLINE OF THE MEANS USED Q7 


give freedom and quality to the drawings. This line train- 
ing, based on action stories, should be used like a ‘‘daily 
dozen”’ as an exercise to be returned to in practice whenever 
the line becomes feeble. It is not to be considered merely as 
a technical drill, for its value lies in the thought back of 
the desire or action that directs the hand. In reality, the 
line is feeble not from want of practice in the hand, but 
- from want of intention in the pupil’s mind. 

With a training in Measure and the establishing of the 
standards of the Vertical and the Horizontal, the Line 
Stories form an introduction to the basic principles of De- 
sign which the children use in a great variety of ways. 

Action figures are used from the beginning, first for mo- 
tion and emotion, then for proportion. As the children at- 
tain good proportions in their action figures the lines are 
doubled, giving bulk, and the figures clothed, after which 
the figures resolve themselves into ‘‘Action Lines,” such as 
any painter would use in beginning a drawing. 

In the primary and in the secondary grades action figures 
serve in the practice of ‘‘Everyday Perspective.” This 
perspective is thoroughly practical for adults as well as for 
children. It gives mental training of unusual quality, in- 
troduces and supplements a later study of formal perspec- 
tive, adds reality to the children’s sketches, and measures 
their interest in drawing, as it becomes possible for them to 
work out accurately problems in a world of action before 
their eyes. 

Much of the want of quality found in industrial design 
can be traced to the fact that good models are copied and 
combined by excellent workmen with skilful technic whose 
memories, however, are untrained and therefore unavail- 
able. One of the results of a training in Memory Drawing 
is to give personal quality and invention to design, for all 


28 THE ART OF SEEING 


the material that has been seen is combined and reproduced 
from subconscious as well as conscious memories. The’ 
variety, originality, and richness of medizval design can be 
accounted for because it was produced in this way and usu- 
ally directly adapted to the object to be decorated. The 
Chinese and Japanese practice is of this order. 

Beginning with the kindergarten, a knowledge of color 
relations is developed and studied in connection with De- 
sign on a basis of the primary colors. When color is used in 
the children’s imaginative drawings the single basic point 
is made that all color is relative. Later work in color is on 
the basis of the Woodbury teaching and practice in the 
study of color relations. 

Imaginative drawing is encouraged at all times. It is in 
these and in the Memory Drawings that the results of the 
training in observation show most clearly. The various 
Means are effective because they are directly personal and 
connected always with the children’s interests. We accept 
the children’s facts and lead them to question their own 
work. 

No copying is done in the Course in Observation unless 
for special reasons. The evil of copying les in the fact 
that the mental food has been predigested. The drawing 
or painting copied is already the result of one person’s 
deductions. A drawing should be original thought, even if 
of slight importance. It is necessary to have the original 
matter before the pupils or they can draw no deductions of 
their own. This practice of drawing directly from the object 
puts the emphasis on individual responsibility. 

Memory Drawing develops unusual power of observation 
and of visual memory, as well as a capacity to co-ordinate 
and use all available knowledge of the object to be drawn. 
Few persons have as good a visual memory as they give 


OUTLINE OF THE MEANS USED — 29 


themselves credit for. They can only visualize familiar 
objects, which shows that they draw from a knowledge of 
the facts, not by visualization as they believe. 

An engineer will succeed in drawing a new and compli- 
cated machine from memory. Set him to draw the ‘‘Dis- 
cobolus’’ and he will fail. Put the painter without scientific 
training to draw a simple machine and the failure will be 
as great. It has been proved that the effort to draw from 
memory has great educational value, in that it focuses and 
strengthens vague memory associations by attaching them 
to a need for practical use when a special object is in question. 

Drawing and modelling from memory, in their true bal- 
ance with direct drawing, are used from the start. When 
light and shade are added to this training the older chil- 
dren, thus equipped, can go to a museum of natural his- 
tory or of art and draw an entire cast or an animal from 
memory. The teaching of light and shade is on a basis of 
cause and effect; that is, a knowledge of what light must do 
in any given circumstances. 

Illustration No. 2@ deserves special attention because of 
its psychological interest. The drawing on the left-hand 
side of the page was the result of a morning spent in a mu- 
seum by a girl of sixteen. Having seen too great a number 
of things, she only remembered a few, and those imperfectly. 
The drawings to the right of the page were done a week 
later without a further visit to the museum. 


TEACHING BY CAUSE AND EFFECT 


We all know the type tree found in most children’s draw- 
ings from the kindergarten, through the primary; even per- 
sisting in the secondary classes. This tree bears a few thick 
branches, each ending in a sharp point, or it is reminiscent 
of the earliest Christmas tree which some one has shown 
the children a fatal best way of drawing. 

These trees, as well as type houses and people, are the 
result of the children’s vague memories or ideas imposed 
by adults. They block all personal observation and be- 
come harmful conventions most difficult to break. When 
the teacher allows the children to repeat type objects in 
their drawings and apparently gives his approval, the habit 
may become fixed in the children’s minds, not only perpetu- 
ating drawings of this order, but closing the doors to intel- 
ligent curiosity in many directions. It is even possible to 
alter a child’s whole life through this form of teaching, and 
fix a literary habit of getting things at second-hand which 
separates him from any direct personal information of the 
world in which he lives. 

Observation is rapidly improved and obstructing conven- 
tions disposed of when pupils cease to generalize vaguely 
about the object they attempt to draw and, through a 
compelling interest, retain the thought of a special object 
rather than a general type imposed on their minds through 
another’s observation. 

The children’s knowledge of trees, houses, and people, 
for instance, instead of remaining static, is daily increased 
when they must ask themselves the questions: ‘“What sort 


of tree am I drawing—an apple, pine, or oak?”’ “‘Which 
30 


TEACHING BY CAUSE AND EFFECT 31 


sort of tree do I want in my picture, and why do I want it 
there’?’’ ‘‘What kind of tree would grow near the house I 
am thinking of ?’’ Then follow the questions: ‘‘How does 
an apple-tree look?’’’ ‘‘Where do the branches start ?’’ 
‘Is an apple-tree as tall as a two-story house ’?”’ ‘‘Would a 
tall pine be higher than a three-story house ?’’ ‘‘What sort 
of house am I thinking of ?”’ ‘‘What kind of people live in 
it?’ Red Riding Hood’s Grandmother would live in a 
cottage, the Fairy Prince would live in a palace, and Cin- 
derella in a small house. 

The teacher must ask invariably what order of tree 
Jack or Mary meant to draw when this cannot be told 
from looking at the tree. If the kind is not clear, the chil- 
dren will be anxious to find out how that tree grows; and if 
no special tree is in a child’s mind, he will soon begin to think 
of one when planning his story. In this way a fundamental 
interest is aroused which will prevent that block in the 
mind produced by inability to fix the attention on any spe- 
cific object. 

A child of four is still an isolated person with symbols of 
his own making and for himself alone. He will make a few 
scratches on a sheet of paper and call them a man or a 
horse. When it is pointed out to him that his drawing in 
no way resembles a man or a horse he will often say: ‘‘I like 
it that way.’’ In this the child is unlike primitive man, who 
would have made his figure or his horse more like if he could, 
for his symbols were related and used as a language. 

We repeat that if left to themselves children will often 
have a long struggle in making the transition from a world 
of their own to one shared with others, but they reach the 
point sooner or later at which they wish to be understood. 
In most cases a child will try to improve his symbols and 
finally give up the effort to express through the medium of 


32 THE ART OF SEEING 


drawing, because the laughter and critical comments of 
his elders give him no clue to seeing or drawing to better 
purpose. 

This change from isolation and egotism to a world in 
which common symbols are shared through writing and 
drawing is a great transition. The objective signs of the 
change must come gradually, and the teacher should not 
wonder if so momentous a process requires patience on his 
part, rather than a desire for superficial finish. Except in 
the case of the inspired teacher, most teaching of drawing 
or so-called ‘‘art’’ has been of an external order. In fact, 
we still attempt, through convention or imitated best ways 
imposed on the children, to produce something tidy and in- 
telligible which will repeat an adult’s experience and has no 
connection with a child’s own life. Such teaching would be 
excusable if the aim were to master a language formed of 
accepted characters, like Chinese, but there is no place 
for it in our effort to cultivate direct personal experience 
through observation. In so far as we succed, we lay the 
only possible foundation for a training in the Fine Arts as 
well as for clear thinking. 

When we teach mental training through drawing our 
chief object should be to leave open all avenues for orig- 
inal observation. Yet we still begin our teaching by closing 
them one after another through imposed conventions. We 
remain unsatisfied until the child’s ambition also is to do a 
tidy copy while the wonders of the universe remain un- 
recognized. 

Seven years old is known traditionally as ‘‘the age of 
reason,’’ because the normal child is logical at that age and 
can reason to good purpose. From a much earlier age chil- 
dren have a sense of things that belong together, the dawn 
of wisdom found in world-wide relations. Many parents © 


TEACHING BY CAUSE AND EFFECT 33 


smile when this sense of fitness is manifested by some keen 
childish observation, usually embarrassing to the adults 
present because of its truth and aptness, but here is found the 
seed of all intelligent teaching—from known things to the 
less known. 

A child’s early conclusions should be respected, and he 
should be led in all he studies to ask questions, not the 
aimless questions of habit, but the intelligent questions 
which he is glad to ask and we to answer. 

The success of the principles of Cause and Effect, when 
consistently applied, can be most clearly demonstrated in 
the teaching of drawing, and they can be observed in their 
application to other objects. In every phase of the chil- 
dren’s growth, when commenting on any drawing, the fol- 
lowing questions should be asked in whatever paraphrase 
best suits the occasion: First, ““HavE you TOLD YOUR 
story?’ That is, has the child expressed what was in his 
mind. Second, ‘‘HAVE YOU TOLD YOUR STORY WELL ?”’ 
Has he through carelessness or lack of thought failed to ex- 
press himself clearly. According to the child’s response the 
teacher should question further: ‘‘If you have not told your 
story so that we can know what you meant to say, had you 
any clear thought about it? And if you have not told your 
story well, was your thought clear enough ?”’ 

The grade teacher, necessarily inexperienced in drawing, 
is often amazed after a teaching by Cause and Effect to 
find in the children’s drawings a true graph of the develop- 
ment of each child’s mind, which might well be used to illus- 
trate and amplify a mental test. 

It is always easier to explain an effect if we can discover 
and refer to the cause. When a child burns his finger on a 
stove for the first time he learns about the effect, but he 
only gets a working knowledge which can be generally 


34 THE ART OF SEEING 


applied when he understands the cause and finds out that 
fire is to be reckoned with. In a general way we never learn 
anything except arbitrary facts until we know causes. 
Knowledge is based on what we know of cause; we get in- 
formation only when we live in effects. 

Children are often protected from the consequences of 
their actions, and the connection between cause and effect 
is broken. When this is the case the value of failure is lost, 
and children or adults who do not trace effect from cause 
live in a world of surprise and luck rather than a world of 

aw. In teaching Observation through drawing, failure 
should be made as valuable and as significant as success if 
it is used as a measure of progress. The recognition of the 
law of Cause and Effect should be universal and not left to 
specialists. It should be part of the equipment of every 
trained person in seeing things as they are. 


Type Lesson in Cause and Effect Teaching 


The teacher’s first object is to interest all the children 
and to make each child feel personally responsible for his 
own expression when he draws his conclusions as to whether 
the teacher and the other members of the class understand 
what he meant to say. 

In this lesson the teacher has told the class that each 
child might choose his or her subject, and the drawings 
have been handed in. They should be put up on screens, and 
large paper should always be used. When possible, every 
child’s drawing should receive some comment. 

The teacher looks at the first drawing, then shows it to 
the class, asking some child whether he knows what story it 
tells. If the child cannot say, any member of the class who 
thinks he knows is asked, or comments on the drawing are 
made by the teacher. If no one can say, the author is asked 





ESE. 


2. Trees Illustrating Cause and Effect Teaching. By children from 5 to 16, 


36 THE ART OF SEEING 


to tell the story. By this time it has become apparent to 
him that he has not managed to convey his intention. 
The teacher should make no criticism, but let the lesson 
sink in, unless, as is often the case, the child has taken a 
subject without external dramatic interest, which had best 
be told in words instead of line. This distinction the teacher 
should emphasize at every opportunity, especially when the 
child, in order to explain, has put written words coming 
from the mouths of his characters. 

We have a great educator in the moving picture, consid- 
ered as a visual story. Nowadays, when every child is fa- 
miliar with the movies, the teacher can find in any current 
visual story incidents where too many words are needed to 
convey a thought, which is therefore unsuitable for pictorial 
expression. 

The teacher should point out the fact that some stories 
are better told in words than in line, and why; also when 
it is better to use different mediums. The children eventu- 
ally will show an instinctive discrimination in their choice 
of material and medium for expression. | 

The next drawing in the lesson is clear as to subject. It 
shows a boy on a ladder which leans against the branch of 
a tall tree, while a girl stands at the foot of the tree with a 
basket. The boy is small, the girl very tall, the rungs of the 
ladder are few and far apart, and the branches of the tree 
are larger than the trunk, the fruit is large and round. The 
teacher’s question is answered at once. The subject is 
‘‘Autumn,’’ expressed by a boy picking apples while his 
sister holds a basket. 

The teacher asks: ‘‘If the boy were standing on the ground 
how much smaller than his sister would he be ?”’ He would 
only come up to her waist, it is discovered, and some one 
questions whether such a baby boy would be allowed to 


TEACHING BY CAUSE AND EFFECT 37 


climb a tall ladder. The teacher then asks whether there is 
anything queer about the rungs of the ladder, and it is found 
that the rungs are so far apart that the boy could not possi- 
bly have climbed that ladder. At last we question the tree. 
Are the branches of trees larger than the trunk? Why 
not? Do the boughs of apple-trees grow straight up in the 
air? How big does an apple look when we see it from the 
ground? Could that tall girl get through the door of the 
little house we see in the corner of the picture? 

It is often better, in a limited time, to spend much of it 
on one sketch, commenting only on some salient character- 
istic in the others, or to let the children find the difficulty, 
asking them what the picture means and then to find any 
evident inconsistency. As the children discover for them- 
selves—through the evidence of their own eyes and their 
reason—first, whether the drawing tells the story and, 
second, what the chief defects are in the telling of the story, 
the criticism is definitely impersonal, for the laws declare 
themselves and are not arbitrarily announced by a personal 
authority. Also the children’s interest is so keenly aroused 
by this way of teaching that the matter in hand occupies 
their minds completely. 

When the drawings are being used in connection with an- 
other study, that is, to increase observation and dramatic 
material in English, History, Nature Study, Geography, 
even Languages (in memorizing vocabularies), the comment 
must primarily be on whether the story is clearly told; ex- 
cept when a glaring inconsistency directly interferes with 
the point of the story. 

Further examples of Cause and Effect teaching are given 
in connection with each of the means employed in the 
Observation Course, and the teacher will discover new oc- 
casions for its application in every daily lesson. This form 


38 THE ART OF SEEING 


of teaching is exhilarating both for the teacher and the 
class, and it will soon be discovered by the teacher that he 
can, in some degree, measure the children’s improvement in 
intelligent observation by his own increased powers. 

As the usual way of looking at a drawing is for technical 
results rather than for purpose, it will be difficult for some 
teachers to change their mental attitude in this regard. 
That this point of view should be changed for one of greater 
intelligence is of the highest importance. In looking at 
drawings, whether by children or adults, when teaching ob- 
servation the motive, not the accomplishment, must come first 
—not what has been said, but why did the person say it. 
A teacher would not consider the words alone when read- 
ing a pupil’s essay—the meaning of the words would come 
first, the form of words would be considered afterward. 
The minds of teacher and pupil should meet first on motives, 
and the work should be read from the point of view of in- 
tention, and not of exterior form alone. 

Teaching by Cause and Effect, whether applied to draw- 
ing or any other subject, leads naturally to a personal, 
practical application; it directs the attention, and gives valu- 
able results in mental as well as technical progress in a re- 
markably short time after the teacher has enlisted the chil- 
dren’s natural curiosity and interest. Whenever we en- 
courage the children to look for Cause and Effect we lead 
their minds away from disassociated things; we give them 
living facts instead of dead information. 

The following suggestions are for a direct training of the 
‘ observation with reference to Cause and Effect. In this 
connection accuracy in the drawings is unobtainable and un- 
important. 

Tell the children that we can never see a force except 
through its results. It is always implied in what we see. 


TEACHING BY CAUSE AND EFFECT 39 


Use as examples the carving forces of the world: wind, rain, 
frost. Tell the children that sand dunes and waves are 
shaped by the winds. Describe the glacier and how it 
changes the earth; how rivers and all running waters change 
the land. Tell them that weight also is a modifying force. 

The teachers will find this form of teaching valuable as 
introduction to all simple geology. 

When the children begin to realize what wind, represent- 
ing force, can do in various ways, take the wind as a com- 
mon term and ask the children for stories of bending trees, 
blowing flags, a line of smoke, an inclined sailboat, clothes 
on a line, etc. 

These stories should be illustrated, first by a drawing of 
the object unmodified, then by a drawing of the object 
modified by the force in question. When possible the draw- 
ings should be in pairs, the intent being to show the result 
of a physical force acting on an object. 

Suggestions follow for illustrations and stories in con- 
nection with this training. 


Suggest stories of Niagara and the great waterfalls; of 
raindrops on the sand. 

Let the children draw the outline ‘of a sand dune. Ask 
them to change the line to show how the dune might be 
changed by the action of a prevailing wind. For a simple 
illustration such drawings can be made one over the other 
on the same paper. 

Suggest stories of the patterns made by the waves on the 
sand. 

Tell a story of sand castles and of how they look after 
they are finished and when the waves have done their work 
on them. 

Suggest that the waves are really little mountains but 


40 THE ART OF SEEING 


with a form that changes more rapidly because of the na- 
ture of the force that is changing them. Ask the children 
to tell what force has made a wave and what a mountain. 

Suggest stories of the effect of weight in modifying shapes. 

Let the children draw a pine-tree; then draw the same tree 
with its branches loaded with snow; an apple-tree with the 
branches laden with fruit. 

Tell the following type of story: 

A boy has a stone in his hand, he drops it into a pool. 
The stone makes a hole in the water; the water rushes to 
fill up the hole so fast that it jumps into the air above the 
level of the pool. Then the little hill made of water, by its 
weight, drops again and goes too far down. It leaves a ring 
around the hole higher than the surface of the pool. Then 
up comes a little hill again and pushes this ring out, and the 
same thing is repeated until the water is covered by ring 
after ring, all drawn about the hole where the stone went in. 

Let the children draw the circles on the water that would 
be caused by the dropping stone. 

The teacher must be warned not to force the point in 
drawing conciusions between Cause and Effect. The chil- 
dren should find the point as their own conclusion and tell 
the stories after the teacher has given some illustrations. 

Ask the children to choose objects and tell a story about 
the force that has made something happen to the object in 
question. The teacher, through suggestion, must be open- 
ing the children’s minds to receive a great variety of ideas 
of Cause and Effect. They should be able to pick out all 
sorts of objects and assign their forms to a cause. 


‘br jo Aog e Aq) ‘awoyes JO aourGq [eIeyoyy, *f 


“oe Yay 4s Omer oye sp ER I = 





TEACHING BY DRAMATIZATION 


In all cases and in every grade when the teacher fails to 
get adequate results from the Course in Observation, two 
questions must be asked. The first question is: ‘“‘HAs THE 
TEACHER FAILED TO REACH AND AROUSE THE ESSENTIAL 
INTERESTS OF THE PUPIL?’ Until this has been done there 
is no foundation on which to build. The Course is not a 
method that can be externally applied, but a way of present- 
ing and dramatizing a few principles. 

The second question is: ‘‘HAS THE CONTINUITY OF THE 
COURSE BEEN SUSTAINED ?”’ 

Dramatization, that is, the active expression of the 
thought or feeling in visible or audible terms, is the essence 
of the teaching in observation through drawing, as the fix- 
ing of the attention on an external point is so directly in- 
volved. 

‘What thought is in the teacher’s mind when dramatizing 
a lesson? It must be to treat the material in such a vital, 
human way that it will be accessible to the pupil. As ameans 
to this end action is a great factor—the word ‘‘dramatic”’ 
often stands for action in some form. As it is essential that 
the pupil should feel a sense of personal responsibility, for 
he is the person who observes, the more active a share he 
takes in the lesson the better. Although the special demon- 
stration had to be suppressed, the quality of teaching was 
proved when two boys began to argue on some technical 
point in the football picture drawn by one of them. In or- 
der to settle the question they followed the usual procedure 
and tried it out in a tackle on the school-room floor with 


serious motive and no rough-housing. If the teacher ne- 
42 


TEACHING BY DRAMATIZATION 43 


glects to let the pupils do their own experimenting when 
observing or thinking of action, their figures will lose mo- 
tion and feeling and soon become arbitrary. The impor- 
tance of this co-ordination of the thought with its physical 
expression is not generally understood. 

Some form of dramatization enters into the teaching of 
every means used in the Course. It is a commonplace of 
pedagogy that a person completely devoid of dramatic 
power cannot teach. The teacher who gives the Course in 
Observation will find himself tested as to his abilities in 
this direction at every point. 

There are two places where dramatization must be es- 
pecially kept in mind: 


1. In the presentation of the means used in the Course. 
2. In the realization that the pupils’ dramatic resources, 
both mental and physical, should be called on at 
every step. 
Line Stortes 


It will be noticed in the type lesson for the kindergarten 
(REF) that the children dramatize the stories through their 
own physical experience before telling them on the board. 
Many stories are told later that cannot be so dramatized, 
but a return to the actual personal experience must be made 
whenever the line stories become stale or confused. 


Measure 


The teacher should present the lessons in measure as a 
new game in seeing. In the type lesson on measure sugges- 
tions will be given for dramatizing the material. 


Vertical and Horizontal 


In the use of the plumb-line and bottle-level the teacher 
first presents the law of gravity in dramatic fashion, tying 


44 THE ART OF SEEING 


it up directly with the children’s games and interests, after 
which the children apply the law with their own hands and 
eyes to the sketches. In this case, as in others, the teaching 
is limited to dramatic suggestion in order to lead the chil- 
dren to draw conclusions from their own work. 


Action Figures 


Action Figures have been used in a variety of ways and 
are not a new element to the teacher. Therefore, when the 
teacher merely accepts them as a way of teaching figure 
drawing and fails to understand the principle of motion and 
human interest on which their use is based, the results will 
not be successful. 

The action figure serves as a symbol of motion, and if it 
is suggested to the children that by using this symbol they 
can tell stories of people doing things there will be no diffi- 
culty in the exchange of their primitive figure which is also 
a symbol but static, with the new figure which stands for 
action and further development. 

The only way to lead the children to give up their con- 
ventional static figures, as with any other bad habit, is to 
substitute a more interesting element based on a human 
motive. 

The children themselves are fundamentally dissatisfied 
with their figures, and yet the percentage of children who 
draw people rather than anything else is large. Motion is 
even more interesting to children than features, and the 
teacher’s clue is to appeal to that fundamental instinct. 

‘We are going to draw thin people in their bones, run- 
ning and jumping and doing all sorts of things. We can tell 
our stories better in this way and more of them. Nellie, 
come to the board and tell us a story of two boys doing 


TEACHING BY DRAMATIZATION A5 


something, and we will all see if we can tell what they are 
doing.”’ 

If Nellie does not succeed in telling her story, she must 
dramatize it. ‘“‘Come out here where we can see you and 
show what your boys are doing. Feel how their arms go. 
What happens to their legs ?”’ 

The children must be conscious of each action in their 
legs and arms, and they must form the habit of going 
through the action they want to draw whenever they are 
at a loss or feel a want of experience. If an illustration is 
needed for school work several children can dramatize the 
action before they start drawing. 

The children should never pose directly for each other 
when drawing action figures. They must look at each other 
when performing the action to gain better information, in 
order to observe the facts, but ONLY DRAW FROM MEMORY. 
An interesting result was obtained in a New York kinder- 
garten where the teacher had posed four children in order 
that the others might draw directly from them. She dis- 
covered to her astonishment that the four models who had 
not had the benefit of the direct sketch all did better figures 
than the children who had drawn from the model. 

In the intermediate grades when the children have 
graduated from action figures and do action lines before 
drawing a figure, some action may be dramatized for the 
children to observe and then draw from memory. 

The direct or information drawing is only used in com- 
bination with memory drawing or after the study of light 
and shade when the dramatic subject is light itself, until 
the following point of view has been firmly rooted: 

ANYTHING SEEN SHOULD BE LOOKED AT AND THOUGHT 
OF FROM THE UNIFYING STANDPOINT OF CAUSE, RATHER 
THAN PIECE BY PIECE. 


46 THE ART OF SEEING 


A paraphrase by a teacher would be: ‘‘You want to tell 
a story of Johnny jumping from a beam in his father’s barn. 
Which is more important to our story—that you think of 
Johnny’s face, hair, and clothes, or of the jump in Johnny? 
How would Johnny feel when he jumped? How would his 
legs go when he felt that way ?”’ 

When thinking of Cause as they look, has become a sub- 
conscious habit of mind through the use of all the means 
taken each in turn from this point of view, the pupils will be 
able to prove that this mental habit is firmly rooted by the 
fact that their drawings made directly from nature or any 
object retain a unifying idea, and therefore the necessary 
technical means are present to convey that thought. 

In the final transition from the action figures with doubled 
lines, which have then been clothed from observation, to 
‘faction lines’’ in which the results of the building up of 
the action figures are shown, it is especially important to 
point the dramatic interest. 

The object of the action figures as used 1n the course has been 
to preserve through every stage the feeling and expression of life 
and motion. The last stage of “action lines”’ from which 
thereafter the pupil never departs has been built up on the 
observation and expression of essentials in the entire course. 
In the practice of Memory Drawing there is direct co-opera- 
tion with this passage from action figures to action lines 
when the object to be drawn is expressed in as few lines as 
possible. Whenever motion is lost in the passage from one 
stage to another, a short return must be made to the former 
practice. The teacher who has had no training in drawing 
will find that the practice of looking at moving objects with 
the thought of discovering the leading action lines is fruitful 
in itself, and will bring increasing interest to the objective 
drama of life and dramatic presentation. 


TEACHING BY DRAMATIZATION 47 


Design 


The vital as opposed to the formal teaching of design and 
color should be taken from the same point of view as the 
teaching throughout the Course; that is, of A PuRPOSE HELD 
IN THE Minp. In design the intention must be in direct con- 
nection with the material to be used, but at first the dramatic 
interest can be carried in the principle of Repetition by the 
repeat alone, when it is based on some of the human reasons 
for liking to do a thing again and again; in the principle of 
Alternation in the variety gained by placing first one thing 
and then another; in the principle of Progression by drama- 
tizing the difference in sizes. After these principles have been 
introduced in this way, the ‘“‘story’’—that is, the dramatic 
interest—should be based on the material used and the 
object decorated, and adapted from direct observation of 
nature and living things. Good designs should be studied 
and analyzed, especially in relation to their original purpose, 
but ONLY DRAWN FROM MEMORY. 

The study of color relations starts with the vivid interest 
in bright colors common to all primitive peoples and small 
children. The children’s dramatic interest in color is guided 
as they are led to discover that the color they like can be 
made to look brighter through the neighborhood of another 
color. In this way the drama of color relations is introduced 
as a lifelong study and interest. 


Memory Drawing and Modelling 


It is inevitable that the mind will focus itself more intently 
on an object about to be withdrawn than on one that is to 
remain indefinitely. If the object to be observed has also 
an element of personal interest or surprise, every condition 


48 THE ART OF SEEING 


for centring the full attention is present. In drawing and 
modelling from memory when possible some salient charac- 
teristic should be pointed out, the special appearance that 
makes. an animal or a plant different from all others. Not 
only a physical but a mental characteristic may be so 
emphasized with excellent results. The haughtiness of the 
camel, the alertness of the squirrel, often lead the mind 
when teaching according to measure alone would leave it 
blank and dull. 

Before drawing trees it is excellent practice to suggest to 
the children that they should “‘act”’ the tree, that is, stand 
with the thought of the droop of the elm, the sturdiness of the 
oak, or the straightness of the pine. Not only should the 
knowledge of what kind of tree they are observing be in their 
minds, but their thought should be filled with the dramatic 
personality of that special tree before they register the 
thought on the paper. 

The teacher should use the full sequence of memory and 
information drawing as a dramatic measure for the pupil’s 
gain in observation. When the first memory drawing is 
compared with the object and the second memory with 
the first, the drawings themselves will dramatize the pupil’s 
advance as well as his needs. 

It is difficult for many teachers to abstain from picking 
out the most finished drawing, rather than that which shows 
the greatest gain in observation. When the point of better 
observation is made in the work of some one beginning to 
see more clearly, the whole class will have a vision of further 
growth. If a performance by a talented person is presented 
as in any way final, the rest of the class is discouraged by 
the difference between their result and that of the person with 
more facility. The measure should be of each person’s gain, 
according to his own problem and growth, and a rivalry 


TEACHING BY DRAMATIZATION 49 


in the power of further vision, rather than in one of actual 
performance. 

Modelling should be taught in the same way and used in 
connection with Memory Drawing whenever time allows. 


Light and Shade 


Teachers should not attempt to teach light and shade 
according to Cause and Effect until they have thoroughly 
dramatized the new point of view in their own minds. It 
is through their thought of the possibilities of the drama 
of light that the subject will be put so directly and vividly 
to the children that they will look with a new intelligence at 
a familiar world. 

The teacher should be able to make the pupils feel that 
to give a record of light through the story of what light does 
to objects is a far more exciting adventure than the effort to 
draw any object for its own sake, unrelated to the master 
subject; that is, if the pupils are told that their effort is akin 
to that of the great painter, and that their aim is his accord- 
ing to degree, the dramatic possibilities can be sustained to 
the level of so worthy a theme and the results will have un- 
usual quality. 

It is not necessary that the teacher should be able to draw 
in order that this point of view may be sustained in his mind 
as an habitual thought. It is a way of looking that is in- 
creased through performance, but that can be acquired and 
initiated in others through the intelligent appreciation of its 
meaning and possibilities. 

The teacher must be again reminded that when an attempt 
is made to establish the thought that drawing is communi- 
cation rather than an artistic effort, the fallacy often results 
that no work is required in order to learn the new language. 
As conventional methods of obtaining standardized prod- 


50 THE ART OF SEEING 


ucts are given up, either for children or for adults, and the 
drawings show for the first time an honest graph of the in- 
dividual mind, the difference in finish between the imposed 
standard and the foundation for a more fruitful growth in 
personal power is apt to be discouraging, if the necessity for 
beginning with a record of true personal observation is not 
realized. 

The world of art and its language has been placed so far 
out of the reach of the ordinary citizen that any effort to 
convince him that the person of talent only goes further on 
the road he also has a right to follow as far as his personal 
endowment permits, meets a long inheritance of misunder- 
standing. 

Many forms of instruction are based on the conviction 
that persons of no special talent, yet who must use some form 
of graphic language in their daily business or profession, re- 
nounce all personal effort in order to acquire a standardized 
way of accepted good practice or good taste. It will be 
commonly said in favor of such methods of teaching ‘‘he 
has no talent, you cannot expect him to take the artist’s 
point of view,’’ yet it is not only possible but necessary that 
every man should look at the world of common things with 
fresh and curious observation in order to reach his full possi- 
bilities in any direction. 

The effort to acquire culture and avoid bad taste by rule 
has no roots in human needs, and so continues to separate us 
from our most valuable inheritance. 

The first reaction to the new point of view is one of relief. 
The pupil believes in the fresh possibilities, but does not 
realize that as much work must be done and continuity 
maintained as in learning any other language. The fact that 
he is not shut out from learning the language through lack 
of special equipment does not mean that he can use it for 


TEACHING BY DRAMATIZATION 51 


speech at once. His first records of observation do not 
please him, but if he can see them as a measure of his prog- 
ress in thinking and seeing, and allow his natural interest 
in his own progress to prevail over the old idea, he will soon 
be able to use the sense of power gained with continuity and 
pleasure. 

Every purpose of education is defeated when children’s 
natural interest in expressing their ideas and proving their 
observations objectively is stopped before the standard by 
which they can measure their fruitful failures has been 
established. The fear of failure as measured from any but a 
personal standard destroys what education has pledged it- 
self to increase—personal initiative and responsibility. To 
impose an artificial standard is so common, and the child’s 
instinct to draw, paint, and model shows itself so early, that 
bad habits of seeing are in force at the age of four years. 
In order to eradicate these habits and change the idea from 
teaching an art once a week to that of teaching and prov- 
ing observation every day, continuity 1s absolutely necessary. 

To a small child once a week for an hour or even two 
half-hours, according to adults’ time measure would be 
once or twice a month. In the interval of the lessons the 
bad habits are repeated and re-establish themselves. When 
it can be proved to teachers that time given to the. culti- 
vation of good mental habits, saves time and the repetition 
of bad mental habits, the basic value of this visual and 
mental training will be realized. 

Under existing conditions the necessary time for reason- 
able continuity can only be had through the co-ordination 
of graphic expression with the children’s interests both at 
home and in school. There are many subjects whose dra- 
matic interests can be focused and increased by observation 
drawing, but the supervisor of a course in observation should 


52 THE ART OF SEEING 


work directly with the other teachers and examine the draw- 
ings in all subjects in order that these drawings be read from 
a psychological as well as a representative point of view. 
In this way all the teachers will have a new standard by 
which to measure the pupil’s need and performance. 

With children of all ages home work in observation 
drawing need conflict with no other subject. They would 
draw in any case, but at random instead of with profit. 
They will bring their stories to the teacher because they 
want his understanding of their efforts. 

Only general suggestions should be made as to subjects 
for the children’s drawings, unless given in connection with 
specific work. There must be room for the children’s per- 
sonal choice and expression, or mental growth is arrested. 


Suggestions for Home and Holiday Work 


1. For children of any age: 

Observation and drawing of some object in 
which they have a real interest or about which 
they need to know more for work or play—ani- 
mals, horses, dogs, cats, birds, trees, and flow- 
ers. ‘“‘I can’t draw a horse” has become ‘I 
can’t draw a motor.’’ But the teacher answers, 
‘You can,’ and suggests that looking at 
horses and pictures of horses ‘‘to see how they 
go,’ and prove whether they remember what 
has been seen, is the way to go about the 
matter. | 

2. Illustrating stories of all kinds, nursery rhymes, 
fairy tales, stories of their own invention: 

Stories from history, literature, geography, na- 
ture study, poetry, books of their own choice 
read at home. 


TEACHING BY DRAMATIZATION 53 


3. For vacation: 

“A land log,’’ in which the weather, wind, etc., 
are noted, and the chief events of the day or 
week illustrated. Color should be used when- 
ever possible in home work with the thought 
kept in mind that color is a relation. 





leeadecdh JOBE 
DIRECTION 


When you draughtsmen wish to find some profitable recreation 
in games, you should always practise things which may be of. use in 
your profession, that is by giving your eye accuracy of judgment so 
that it may know how to estimate the truth as to the length and 
breadth of objects. So in order to accustom the mind to such things 
let one of you draw a straight line anywhere on a wall, and then let 
each of you take a light rush or straw in his hand, and let each cut his 
own to the length which the first line appears to him when he is dis- 
tant from it a space of ten braccia, and then let each go up to the 
copy in order to measure it against the length which he has judged 
it to be, and he whose measure comes nearest to the length of the 
copy has done best and is the winner and he should receive from all 
the prize which was previously agreed upon by you. 

Furthermore you should take measurements foreshortened; that 
is, you should take a spear or some other stick and look before you 
to a certain point of distance and let each set himself to reckon how 
many times this measure is contained in the said distance. 

Another thing is to see who can draw the best line one braccia 
in length, and this may be tested by tightly drawn thread. 

Diversions such as these enable the eye to acquire accuracy of 
judgment, and this is the primary essential of painting. 


Leonardo da Vinci, 





DIRECTION 1 
LINE STORIES 


Starting with the first childish instinct to draw a line and 
to call it something, we give the children a thought which 
may be illustrated in that way. Appearances are entirely 
beyond their power at first, as their observation is not 
close enough nor their hand skilful enough to record what 
little they know. 

A line representing an action is at the same time a simple 
thought and a simple mechanical performance, and when a 
thought and a line are consciously co-ordinated we get the 
first step in expression. The fact that the mind is on the 
story prevents the children from feeling self-conscious as 
they draw the line. The hand must be instinctively obedi- 
ent, so that it automatically answers the thought. 

The point of great importance is that the thought should 
be clear, however crude the expression may be. The lines 
in the first example chosen involve the least muscular ef- 
fort, as the weight of the arm and hand helps in steadying a 
downward stroke, like strokes in tennis. 

As muscular control is gained, diagonal lines in various 
directions follow, emphasizing the thought of direction. 
Passing from single lines, groups of lines are taken up, 
starting from one point and drawing to various other points. 
This exercise requires quickness of thought, for it is a re- 
peated motion with variation of direction. Closed figures 
follow, bringing in the simple plane geometrical forms. 

Up.to this point the object of the teaching is to establish 

57 


58 THE ART OF SEEING 


the thought of direction. The next step will be measure, 
which is a comparison. 

With direction and measure, the work with line used to 
symbolize action is finished, and we pass to its use as a 
means of representing objects as they appear. The line is 
still abstract and does not aim at imitation, since we see 
all objects in light and shade as well as in color. Line, 
however, will express the more general aspect of objects, 
and these generalities are what the children will be able 
to see first. 


Example 1 


LINE DRAWN FROM UPPER TO LOWER POINT 


LET THE CHILDREN PLACE TWO POINTS ON THE BLACK- 
BOARD, ONE HIGHER THAN THE OTHER, ABOUT A FOOT APART, 
AND WITHIN EASY REACH. "THEN CONNECT THEM WITH A 
LINE. "THE LOWER SHOULD AT FIRST BE DIRECTLY BELOW 
THE UPPER POINT. 


Vary the example later by placing the lower point to the 
right or to the left. 

The chalk should be placed on the upper point and a line 
drawn quickly and firmly to touch the lower point. Speed 
is most important. 

The starting point must be accurate and definite and the 
intention must be to make the ending point equally so. 

A point means location. 

The point should be sufficiently clear as a starting or end- 
ing place, and the size should be chosen with that in view. 

No tentative lines have any value, as such lines indicate 
an uncertain purpose. The children’s minds should first 
hold the thought of the passage between one point and 
another, then the action should ensue practically without 
thought. 


60 THE ART OF SEEING 


Let the children think before they act. 

The points represent the beginning and ending of the 
story. 

The line represents the action of the story. 

The example should never be unconnected with the 
story, and the point must have a strictly personal meaning 
with the children. 

The line is a single stroke and must not be corrected. 

This exercise should be repeated with fresh points indef- 
initely until the children are able to start from one point 
and strike the other point swiftly and surely. The same 
story can be used as long as it retains its interest. 

Failure to hit the lower point means untrained muscles 
and undirected mind. If the starting and ending points are 
insisted upon, both muscles and mind will be trained to 
accuracy. 

As soon as the children understand that the points are 
symbols, they will enter into whatever examples they are 
given with the same zest that they bring to their favorite 
games. 

In drawing a quick line it is natural to start firmly at the 
first point and end the line vaguely, even when the second 
point has been hit. This is the type of line that on no ac- 
count must be permitted. 

The line should start with a firm pressure of the chalk 
on the initial point, and terminate with an equal pressure 
at the end. 

Make the children realize that in drawing their lines they 
are doing something to make their story clearer to other 
people. 

For the first week the work should be done on the black- 
board, and continued there subsequently as the size of the 
class permits. 


DIRECTION 61 


The line drawn on a board naturally involves a motion of 
the whole arm, which is easier and freer than an elbow or 
wrist motion. 

No work at the desk should be done with a finger motion. 
Use large sheets of paper and keep the whole arm motion 
as nearly as possible. 


Suggestions to Teachers for Stories 


The child’s first impulse is reaching. Let the child say 
“I am here”’ at the Upper Point, and ‘‘I reach for that ball, 
orange, or toy’’ as represented by the Lower Point. 

The line to him will represent desire, direction or inten- 
tion, and speed; being a graphic representation of his mental 
state, his muscular reaction will follow in response to the 
thought. 

The line could also represent walking or running from 
one point to another, or throwing a ball, and may be iden- 
tified with all children’s games. 

The line could also represent things that pass from one 
point to another, such as homing birds, a train going from 
one station to another, etc. 

In the children’s minds the points should not be dry or 
abstract, but within the limits of the story. 

The children should occasionally repeat the story after 
the lines are made in order to insure accuracy of intention. 

Encourage the children to tell their stories, but see that 
they fit the example. If the teacher comments on the 
stories, pointing out why some are better told in words and 
some in lines, he will establish from the earliest years a 
choice of medium for expression and avoid one element 
that enters into the confusion of the arts. 

THE STORIES MUST ALWAYS ARISE FROM THE CHILDREN’S 


62 THE ART OF SEEING 


IMMEDIATE INTERESTS. The teacher suggests these daily 
interests; he does not tell the story. 

When possible the story should come from the children’s 
school work and play, according to occupation and season. 


Type Lesson—Kindergarten 


The teacher’s office is to lead, therefore to SUGGEST and 
CONTROL—not to impose a method on the children. It fol- 
lows that unless she can bring the class to such a point of 
interest that it will take its own initiative she has failed. 

We are now watching a class of four-year-old children 
having their first lesson in Line Stories with a highly trained 
kindergarten teacher. 

The children are gathered in a group near the board, and 
the teacher has suggested that something new and interesting 
is about to happen. She speaks to Tom: ‘‘Stand on this 
chair with your ball. Now hold the ball high up. What will 
you do with it ?’’ The prompt answer is ‘‘ Drop it.” 

The teacher now chooses Fred. ‘‘Stand on the floor near 
Tom and hold out your hands. What will you do?” “‘Catch 
the ball,” says Fred. Tom drops the ball twice, but Fred 
misses it. ‘‘Now once more,” says the teacher, and Fred 
catches it. ‘‘Can you tell that story on the board, Tom ?”’ 
asks the teacher. “Yes.” 

And without hesitation Tom goes to the board, draws a 
round for the ball as high up as he can reach, another round 
for Fred’s hand, and makes the quick line between the two. 
He misses the lower point the first time, which is appreciated 
by the other children, but succeeds at last. Then Fred and 
all the other children tell the story on the board. Later they 
go to their desks and tell the story with crayon and paper. 

The next day one of the kindergarten games, in which the 


DIRECTION 63 


mouse tries to get the cheese and runs to his hole when dis- 
covered, is played, after which the teacher speaks: ‘‘Let us 
tell that story as Tom told his yesterday. Who can tell it ?”’ 
Mary can, and she goes to the board. ‘‘We will make a 
round point for the hole and another for the cheese,” sug- 
gests the teacher; ‘‘then we will see how fast and straight 
the mouse ran to his hole.” After this the stories come 
thick and fast. 

Many teachers have not enough control of themselves and 
the children to let the story develop in this way, especially 
with older children. In such cases, while making every 
effort to attain the standard of SUGGESTION and CONTROL, 
that is, “‘MIND ON AND HANDS OFF,” the teacher may say 
to the children: ‘‘We are going to tell stories in a new way, 
with points and lines, instead of with words. I will tell a 
story first that a boy told me, then you may tell your stories. 
Tom was standing under an apple-tree here, when a big red 
apple fell right into his hands here. When I say ‘here’ make 
your two points, one for the apple and one for Tom’s hands. 
_ Now show how fast and straight the apple fell from the tree 
into Tom’s hands.”’ The teacher turns failure to account by 
saying to the children who have missed the second point: 
‘“‘See, Tom missed the apple; try again and he will catch it.” 

Sometimes it takes many trials before the story is com- 
pleted, but failure can be made as valuable as success if the 
loss of the objective is emphasized. At first the children’s 
stories will resemble the type story, but they will soon tell 
their own. When the story is long and rambling the teacher 
should say to the children: ‘‘Such a story would be better 
told in words. We need short stories in which something 
happens to tell with lines and points.” 

We repeat that the line must be clear and bold, never pale 
or tentative. The children must be thoroughly alive to 


64 THE ART OF SEEING 


doing something definite, not vague or impulsive. They 
must have both physical and mental sensation of motion— 
the sense of going, which, because rooted in personal action, 
brings the matter home to them. We are training the sub- 
conscious mind, that we may afford to be impulsive later. 


Type story by a boy: 


A fireman was sleeping when he heard. the alarm. 

He jumped up and slid down the pole. 

Show where he slid from the top of the pole here to 
the floor here. 


Type story by a girl: 
Mary was standing on a beam in the barn here. 


She jumped down to the hay here. 
Show Mary jumping from the beam to the hay. 


As many children think of going down a hill or staircase 
as a vertical, stories for Example 1 may be used vertically 
or diagonally, as the teacher finds it best suited to the class. 


Example 2 
LINES DRAWN FROM LEFT TO RIGHT 


LET THE CHILDREN PLACE TWO POINTS ON THE BOARD AT 
AN EQUAL HEIGHT FROM ITS BASE, THEN CONNECT THEM 
WITH A LINE DRAWN FROM LEFT TO RIGHT. 


The motion from left to right is easy because we have the 
free sweep of the whole arm. In drawing from right to left, 
the arm crosses the body and cramps the shoulder. Do not 
let the children stand too near the board. 


DIRECTION 65 


The placing of these points should be changed as the skill 
of the child increases and the length of the line varies, for 
it is more difficult to join distant points than close ones. 

To vary this example change the right hand point above 
and below the horizontal, making the exercise one of diagonal 
lines. All running stories can be used for Examples 2 and 3, 
also stories of travel and of ball games. 


A type story by a boy: 


Here is a man aiming a gun. 
Here is the target. . 
Show where the bullet goes from the gun to the target. 


A type story by a girl: 
Here I am in the garden. 
Here is my mother at the door of the house with a 
piece of gingerbread. 
See how quickly I run from the garden to the door. 


These stories can be used for Examples 2 and 3 by changing 
the direction. 
Example 3 
LINES DRAWN FROM RIGHT TO LEFT 


LET THE CHILDREN PLACE TWO POINTS ON THE BOARD AT AN 
EQUAL HEIGHT FROM ITS BASE, THEN CONNECT THEM WITH A 
LINE DRAWN FROM RIGHT TO LEFT. 


Vary the location of these objective points as indicated in 
Example 2. 
For technical instruction, refer to the preceding chapters. 


66 THE ART OF SEEING 


Example 4 
LINES DRAWN FROM LOWER TO UPPER POINT 


LET THE CHILDREN PLACE TWO POINTS ON THE BOARD ONE 
ABOVE THE OTHER, THEN DRAW A LINE QUICKLY AND FIRMLY 
FROM THE LOWER TO THE UPPER POINT. 


To vary this example, place the upper point first to the 
right and then to the left of the vertical. 

This is the most difficult single line to draw, as it involves 
a complex motion of the arm. The natural upward sweep of 
the arm would be a curve with the shoulder as a pivot, and 
this mechanical action must be balanced by the attention of 
the mind on the upper point. Insist upon the upper point in 
this example and the muscles will carry out the intention. 


A type story by a boy: 
Here is the top of a rope ladder in the gymnasium. 
Here is Tom at the foot. 
Show how quickly Tom climbed from the bottom of 
the ladder to the top. 


A type story by a girl: 
Jack lived in a little house. 
One morning he saw a beanstalk reaching to the sky. 
Show Jack climbing from the ground here, up the bean- 
stalk to the sky here. 


Example 5 


LET THE CHILDREN PLACE THREE OR MORE POINTS AT 
RANDOM ON THE BOARD, THEN FROM THE UPPER POINT DRAW 
A LINE TO EACH OF THE OTHER POINTS QUICKLY AND FIRMLY. 


DIRECTION 67 


Example 6 


LET THE CHILDREN PLACE THREE OR MORE POINTS AT 
RANDOM ON THE BOARD, THEN START FROM THE LEFT-HAND 
POINT AND DRAW A LINE TO EACH OF THE OTHERS. 


To do this correctly, the child must have the mental con- 
ception of the complex action, before any line can be made. 
Two or more motions are intended instead of one. The lines 
must be drawn with the same rapidity as in the other ex- 
amples and with no pause for consideration of single lines. 

These examples are for training in quickness of thought, as 
the returns to the initial point require speed in the mind as 
well as in the hand. The teacher should remember this fact 
and maintain a nice balance between accuracy and speed. 

The teacher must see that the children make a new start 
each time from the initial point when they draw their lines. 


A type story by a girl: 
Father goes to work in the morning here. 
Mary goes to primary school here. 
John goes to high school here. 
Mother stays at home in the house on the hill here. 
Show father and the children going to their work. 


A type story by a boy: 
Here are three boys. 
Here are three electric lights. 
The teacher asks to have them lighted. 
Show where the three boys run to reach the lights. 


Example 7 
LET THE CHILDREN PLACE THREE OR MORE POINTS AT 
RANDOM ON THE BOARD, THEN START FROM THE RIGHT-HAND 
POINT AND DRAW LINES TO EACH OF THE OTHER POINTS. 


68 THE ART OF SEEING 


Example 8 


LET THE CHILDREN PLACE THREE OR MORE POINTS AT 
RANDOM ON THE BOARD, THEN START FROM THE LOWEST POINT 
AND DRAW LINES TO EACH OF THE OTHER POINTS. 


Example 9 


LET THE CHILDREN PLACE THREE OR MORE POINTS AT 
RANDOM ON THE BOARD, THEN DRAW A LINE FROM EACH TO 
THE LOWEST POINT, SO REVERSING EXAMPLE 5. 


Example ro 


LET THE CHILDREN TAKE, IN TURN, POINTS ON THE EX- 
TREME LEFT AND RIGHT, AND, FINALLY, THE UPPER POINT, 
AS THE OBJECTIVES, WHICH BRING THE REVERSAL OF EX- 
AMPLES 6, 7, AND 8. 


In the first examples, the initial point was the same, 
while the objective points varied. In Examples 9 and 1o. 
the initial points vary, while the objective is constant. 


Two type stories by boys: 


Here are four boys picking berries. 

Here is a tall tree. 

One boy sees a bull. 

They all run to climb the tall tree. 

Show where each boy ran to climb the tree. 


Here is a raft. 

Here are four people swimming. 

Some one signals a shark. 

Show the four swimmers making for the eth 


DIRECTION 69 
A type story by a girl: 


Here is a hen that has round a worm. 
Here are five chickens scattered around the yard. 
Show where the chickens ran to get the worm. 


The practice of Line Stories is further developed in the 
chapter on Design, in Part VI. 

In this chapter, simple geometrical figures head the lessons 
in Design. 

These figures are used for a continuation of the training 
in Line Stories before they are applied in Design. 

On no account should this preliminary training in line be 
omitted when teaching the principles of Design. 


DIRECTION 2 
MEASURE 


Small children are individualists, because they have no 
standards until they can make comparisons. As they gain in 
responsibility, they begin to measure and compare, and 
their conclusions are a direct result of the standards they are 
forming. 

If a teacher condemns these results rather than the imper- 
fect comparisons which are responsible for the errors they 
contain, he imposes an artificial standard which gives the 
children no means of arriving at their own conclusions. 

When we measure, we compare. Any attempt to measure 
involves using a standard or unit, and the result is expressed 
in multiples of this unit. 

A unit, to be intelligible, must lie within personal expe- 
rience; therefore measure must be adapted for the children 
to their mental place. 


70 THE ART OF SEEING 


Their first thought of measure will be of bigger and smaller 
and not of equality. 

As we are training the mind to measure visual spaces, we 
use no mechanical means; they would only defeat our pur- 
pose. 


Example 1 


LET THE CHILDREN PLACE THREE POINTS ON THE BOARD AT 
EQUAL DISTANCES FROM EACH OTHER AND THE SAME HEIGHT 
FROM THE BASE, THEN CONNECT THEM WITH A LINE. 


Call on the children to judge as to which is the larger 
division. 
Example 2 
LET THE CHILDREN PLACE ‘FOUR POINTS ON THE BOARD 


AT EQUAL DISTANCES FROM EACH OTHER AND THE SAME 
HEIGHT FROM THE BASE, THEN CONNECT THEM WITH A LINE. 


Call on the children to judge as to which is the largest 
division. | 
Suggestions for Stories 
Type stories by a boy: 


John went to the school sports and won the potato 
race. 

He picked up two, four or six potatoes the same dis- 
tance apart in a straight line and put them in his 
basket while he was running. He beat Jim, who 
dropped his potatoes. Show where John picked 
up the potatoes. 


Four ducks were flying at equal distances from each 
other. 
Show where each duck was on the line of its flight. 


DIRECTION 71 
Type stories by a girl: 
Mother asked Mary to take four (or a larger number) 
towels from the line. 
They were exactly the same distance from each other 


on the line. 
Show where Mary unpinned the towels from the line. 


Hop o’ My Thumb and his little sister went into a 
thick wood; on their way from home they dropped 
four pebbles all the same distance apart. 

Show where each pebble dropped. 


Example 3 


LET THE CHILDREN PLACE THREE OR MORE POINTS AT 
REGULAR DISTANCES ON THE BOARD, BUT NOT ON A LINE, THEN 
CONNECT THEM AS BEFORE. 


Points at regular distances on a straight line, as in Ex- 
ample 1, are the easiest to estimate. Regular spaces on an 
irregular line, as in Example 3, are more difficult to esti- 
mate. ) 


A type story by a boy: 

Jim played hopscotch so well that he hopped into the 
middle of all the squares with exactly the same 
distance between the hops until he reached the 
end of the game. 

Show where Jim touched as he hopped down the 
walk. 


A type story by a girl: 
The robins have taken the four baby robins out of 
the nest for the first time. 


72 THE ART OF SEEING 


They are sitting on a crooked branch at equal dis- 
tances from each other, but some are higher and 
some are lower. But they are all sitting on the 
same branch. Show how the branch went from 
one point to another and where the birds sat. 


Example 4 


LET THE CHILDREN DRAW A PARALLELOGRAM, A SQUARE, 
AND A REGULAR TRIANGLE WITH REFERENCE TO MEASURE. 


A parallelogram is a four-sided figure whose sides are 
equal in pairs. 

A square is a parallelogram all of whose sides are equal, 
and with right-angle corners. 

A regular triangle is a three-sided figure all of whose 
sides are equal. 

These figures represent regular dimensions and can be 
used to great advantage to establish the value and thought 
of measure. 

Other regular figures may be used if desirable. 

In drawing geometrical figures, the teacher should not 
allow the name of the figure to become important, but 
should dwell on the story, and use the geometrical name as 
a way of classifying regularly enclosed figures. Let the 
story come first and the name of the figure afterward. 


Two type stories by a boy: 


Jim and Henry made a snow fort with four sides each 
the same length. 

They got into the fort. 

Then they jumped out and ran around the square. 

Make a line to show the four corners of the fort and 
how Jim and Henry turned the corners as they ran. 


DIRECTION 13 


The carpenter stood in the workshop making a 

— little stool for his child. 

First he took a nice smooth piece of wood and sawed 
off the ends until it was square. 

Then he put a leg on each corner. 

Show the top of the stool and where he placed the 
legs. 


Four type stories by a girl: 


Mary’s house is on the corner of a block. 

Each of the four sides of the block is of the same 
length. 

Sometimes the children have races round the block 
back to Mary’s house to see who can run the 
fastest. 

Alice always wins because she has such long legs. 

Make a line to show the four corners of the block and 
how Alice turned the corners as she ran. 


Our playhouse had but one window. 
The top of the window and the bottom of the window 
' and the two sides of the window were all the same 
length. 
The top of the window was just as long as the dis- 
tance from this point to this point. 
Show how the four sides of the window looked. 


The door of the playhouse had four sides. 

The four sides were not equal. 

The door had two long sides and two short sides. 

The top of the door and the bottom of the door were 
the short sides. These sides were equal. 

The two long sides were equal. 

Show how the four sides of the door looked. 


74 THE ART OF SEEING 


We had planted a bed of bright flowers near the 
door of the playhouse. 

The bed had three sides. 

The three sides were equal. 

Each side was as long as one long step. 

Here is one side of the flower bed. 

Show how the other sides looked 


Example 5 
LET THE CHILDREN PLACE TWO POINTS ON THE BOARD, 


CONNECT THEM WITH A LINE, AND CONTINUE THE LINE TO 
AN EQUAL DISTANCE BEYOND THE LAST POINT. 


Example 6 


LET THE CHILDREN PLACE TWO POINTS ON THE BOARD, 
CONNECT THEM WITH A LINE, AND CONTINUE THE LINE TO 
HALF THE DISTANCE BEYOND THE LAST POINT. 


Do not measure except to verify. 

The third point should be estimated but not placed. 

The value of this exercise is to train the sense of measure- 
ment with the aid of points. 


A type story by a boy: 
A cat climbed a tree after a squirrel and reached the 
first branches. 


The squirrel went half way as far again as pussy had 
climbed. 
Show how far the squirrel ran from the ground. 


A type story by a girl: 


Mother went to see grandma a mile away and took 
John, 


DIRECTION 75 


Aunt Lizzie lived half a mile beyond grandma’s 
house and kept a pair of goats. 

Mother said that John could run over and see the 
goats while she paid grandma a visit. 

Show where John went and where the goats lived. 


The teacher should measure to verify when the children 
have finished the example, but the children should not use 
a ruler in their exercises. 

In Examples 1 and 2 the children are expected to judge 
the unequal length of the line. This is easy when differ- 
ences are considerable, but increasingly difficult when differ- 
ences are small. 


Measure—Type Lesson 


The teacher calls two children to the board—the rest of 
the class watching. John and Mary are at two boards fac- 
ing the class. The teacher says: “John and Mary are going 
to tell this story for me on the board: A carpenter was mak- 
ing a fence. Of course, he wanted the posts to be the same 
distance apart. Now, make three points for three posts 
and draw a line from the first to the last post. We will look 
at John’s fence first. All those who think his first space is 
larger than the second hold up their hands. Now, those 
who think the second space is larger. What do you think 
yourself, John’? Let us find out about Mary’s fence.’ 
(If there is great difference of opinion, the teacher should 
measure with a ruler to verify the conclusion.) 

The next children to go to the board may use the same 
story to illustrate Example 2. After the teacher has told 
one story, he should help the children, by dramatic sug- 
gestion, to contribute their own stories. 

To vary the examples, if circumstances permit, some 


76 THE ART OF SEEING 


measuring games may be played—hopping or jumping equal 
distances marked with chalk on the floor; cutting paper into 
equal parts by visual measure; walking blindfolded to the 
board and telling any story involving equal placing, and in | 
connection with the different examples. 

When older children know the divisions of the foot rule, 
their observation may be trained in the following way: 

Ask the children: “‘How many inches long are your pen- 
cils’?’’ After the estimate is made, each child should go to 
the board and tell the story of the length of his special pen- 
cil, finally verifying his line with the foot rule. 

Ask the children: ‘‘How high is my table’?”’ ‘‘How long 
is your book ?”’ 

Let the children guess at the measurements of the chairs, 
blackboards, pictures, etc., in the room; let them guess at 
how tall each one is. When they have estimated the meas- 
urements they should verify with the foot rule when possible. 

Make it a game to see how near they can come to the ex- 
act measurement. The foot rule is not to be used except to 
verify. 

Plans of towns, gardens, etc., comparing and measuring 
relative space and distance, can be made with blocks or any 
material with which the children are working. 


DIREGTION: 3 
VERTICAL AND HORIZONTAL 


The Vertical became a factor in human existence when 
the first man stood erect on his feet, for, obeying the force 
of gravity, it is the body direction of greatest stability. It 
is also the direction that all mass takes when free to move— 
the path of a falling body—and we call it normal, plumb, 
upright, or vertical, each term having its special suggestion. 





5. Flags Illustrating Results of Exercise in Line Stories. 
By children of 3 and 4. 


77 





78 THE ART OF SEEING 


The Horizontal is also associated with muscular sensa- 
tion. We move with the most perfect balance on the hori- 
zontal. One of the elements—water—in its obedience to the 
force of gravity, supplies us with a standard that is common 
experience. 

Direction is a relation between two points, one of which 
is location, and must be held in the mind. 

Every thought we may have of direction must have the 
earth as a location, for there can be no direction between 
two points in space unless one of the points is defined. 
Two such points would have one direction from the earth, 
another from the sun, and other directions from whatever 
points are taken as location, but space itself is the antith- 
esis of the finite and has neither limit nor direction. 

Direction is like a mental jump; there must be a defined 
point of departure just as in a physical jump we must 
start from the earth and cannot start from a point in the 
air. From the earth, all points in space have direction rel- 
ative to the earth itself. Surface directions on the earth 
are established in reference to the North, which is an ar- 
bitrary fixed point and gives us, wherever we may be, a loca- 
tion in relation to it in space of two dimensions. 

Anything in the plane of the earth’s surface may be lo- 
cated by reference to the North, but as soon as the third 
dimension is recognized we must add another standard of 
direction. We could point to the sun and say it was in the 
Southwest, but that would define only part of its direction 
from us, for we need the angle it makes with the earth’s 
surface to establish its position in our universe of three di- 
mensions. The geometrical standard by which to measure 
this angle would be a plane tangent to the earth’s surface 
at the point of location. This is one of our common stand- 
ards—the horizontal. But the standard that has the most 


DIRECTION 79 


- intimate human association is the vertical, the direction at 
right angles to the horizontal. 

Direction is represented by a straight line connecting two 
points, but no straight line has direction in itself and must 
be referred to some established condition. A straight line 
drawn at random on a sheet of paper has direction in re- 
lation to the bottom of the paper, and perhaps another in 
relation to the table edge, or still a third as related to the 
person who draws it. A picture on the wall may have a 
sloping horizon line, which may be the fault of the picture 
wire and not of the painter. In drawing, the vertical is not 
established unless the horizontal is either drawn or implied. 
It must be vertical to something. When we speak in gen- 
eral terms of the vertical, we have reference to a line having 
that direction in relation to the earth. 

Most people have a sense or feeling of the vertical, for 
many of us can judge if a building stands true; and if it 
does not there is a look of instability that we usually recog- 
nize. This sense can be trained to accuracy, as with car- 
penters and others whose occupations cause them to look 
for Verticals. The Vertical is a matter of importance in 
drawing, since it is our standard of direction. It should 
therefore be made a matter of importance in the training. 

This discussion is solely to clear the teacher’s conception 
of the subject before he begins to interest the children. 


Through the use of two simple means of verification it is 
possible to give children, even in the kindergarten, a final 
way of proving their own work, and to establish the stand- 
ards of the vertical and the horizontal in their minds in 
connection with practical matters. 

The first standard of direction is the Vertical. It is the 
name for the direction in which any heavy object would 


80 THE ART OF SEEING 


fall, and for that reason it is used as a standard with which 
all other directions are compared. 

A string holding a weight suspended in the air makes a 
true vertical line, and is called a plumb line. 

Plumb lines can be used by the children themselves to 
test their drawings. 

The teacher should have at hand several plumb lines 
weighted with whatever small objects the children are 
likely to find at home. After the first lesson the children 
should make and bring their own plumb lines and be held 
responsible for them. 

The second standard of direction is the Horizontal, and 
it is at right angles to the Vertical. 

As a standard must be an unvarying thing, we derive it 
from something that always happens. This can be done only 
from some basic law of nature. 

The action of gravity on still water causes the surface to 
be always horizontal, whether in the ocean or in a pan. 
This still surface we take as our standard for the Horizontal. 

In a flat bottle half full of water, no matter how it is 
turned, the line of the water will be horizontal. 

The children can prove the horizontal lines in their 
drawings by holding up such a bottle to verify the lines. 
The teacher should use the bottle as a level and demon- 
strate the standard to the children, until they are old enough 
to handle the bottle themselves. 

The children should be encouraged to test vertical and 
horizontal lines at home until they become instinctive 
standards of direction. 


Type lesson in the use of the Plumb Line and the Bottle 
Level in relation to the children’s drawings : 


One of the first objects that a small child attempts to 
draw is a house, because he himself lives in one and it rep- 


DIRECTION 81 


resents his immediate surroundings. But the house rarely 
has a true vertical or horizontal line, the windows are 
crooked, and the chimney is falling over. If the teacher 
says, ‘“That line is wrong; your house is falling over,’’ the 
child feels vaguely worried, for the house is still a symbol 
to him and he has as yet few visual.or mental standards. 
If we lead him, instead, to question his own and his neigh- 
bor’s house, providing him with a true measure that he can 
apply directly, he has the means of independent criticism 
in his own hands. His line fails, not for want of manual 
dexterity, but for lack of thought. This fact is proved in 
the following type lessons in starting a class when teaching 
the standards of the Vertical and the Horizontal. 

The teacher sends as many children as possible to the 
board, and gives the others large sheets of paper. He tells 
them to draw a house that they would like to live in, giving 
five minutes for the drawing. Then the drawings on paper 
are fastened to a wall or door with thumb tacks and the 
lesson begins. The teacher says: ‘“‘I am going to tell you 
one of the most interesting things I know, and which is al- 
ways so. It will show you how to make your houses stand 
up as real houses do.” 

The conception of the vertical and the horizontal must 
come to the children through the familiar things before 
their eyes. They are already familiar with direction, but 
they are without a fixed standard. Explain to them the 
necessity of having a standard from which to measure. 

Give the children the name ‘“‘vertical,’’ and say that it is 
the name for the direction in which a stone or any heavy 
object would drop from their hands wherever they might 
be. Tell the children about the law of gravity. Dramatize 
with stories. 

Tie a stone or any suitable weight to a string. Hold it 
steadily and tell the children that the stone is pulling the 


82 THE ART OF SEEING 


string in exactly the direction that the stone would fall if 
it were not tied and so held from the ground. 

Say to them: ‘‘This is something to measure by that is 
always so.”’ 

Point out the verticals—chimneys, flagpoles, etc.—in the 
neighborhood, and identify them with the line which a 
stone would make if dropped from the top of the object 
chosen to the ground. 

The teacher then chooses a drawing with poor lines and 
says to its author: ‘‘Now you can tell with the plumb line 
whether the walls of your house are vertical.’’ He then 
shows the child how to hold the end of the string on one 
of the upper corners of his house and to make a mark on 
the board where the string touches the lower corner. ‘The 
children see exactly how far their lines are from the ver- 
ica, 

To them it is in the nature of a personal discovery, each 
child being anxious to test his line; which he should do 
without help from the teacher. As many of the class as 
possible should be allowed to make their tests, the teacher 
choosing alternately good and poor lines. 

Failure is as valuable as success for demonstration, for the 
evident difference between a line far from vertical and one 
which the plumb line shows to be true soon establishes a 
standard and is the best of object-lessons. Suggestions for 
general practice with the plumb line follow. 


Examples 


1. TELL THE CHILDREN TO FIND VERTICAL LINES IN OB- 
JECTS ABOUT THE ROOM WITH THE PLUMB LINE. 

2. ‘TELL THE CHILDREN TO FIND VERTICAL LINES WITH- 
OUT THE PLUMB LINE AND THEN CONFIRM THE LINE. 

3. TELL THE CHILDREN TO DRAW VERTICAL LINES ON 


DIRECTION 83 


THE BOARD, CONNECTING THESE LINES WITH THE STORY OF 
A DROPPING STOVE, FRUIT FALLING FROM A TREE, ETC. 
PuT THE EMPHASIS ON THE DROPPING OF A HEAVY OBJECT. 
VERIFY WITH THE PLUMB LINE. 

4. CALL THE CHILDREN’S ATTENTION TO FLAGPOLES, 
TREE-TRUNKS, GOAL-POSTS, ETC. 


The teaching of vertical lines should be followed until 
the children have a clear conception of the standard. 

Apply the thought in as many ways as possible in connec- 
tion with what has gone before in Direction. When the 
children draw houses the lines should be vertical and no 
longer fall over. The doors and windows should be true. 

Take up all the preceding examples that show vertical 
lines, so presenting familiar things and adding a new stand- 
ard. The children are unconsciously using a great law of 
nature as a measure for their own small affairs. 

Except under special conditions and with older children 
the lesson on the use of the bottle level to verify horizontal 
lines should be given on another day and not immediately 
following the plumb-line practice. 

The general procedure is the same as with vertical lines. 
It is more difficult to verify a horizontal line because the 
line must be observed through the glass of the bottle, but 
in any case the point of the lesson is made, a standard pre- 
sented, and a law established in the minds of the children. 
The same drawings of houses used for the vertical may be 
used with profit for the horizontal. 


Suggestions for Stories 


Do you remember how the playhouse looked ? 
How many walls had it? 
How many windows? 


84 THE ART OF SEEING 


One day a hard wind blew down the playhouse. 

We set to work to build it up again. 

We built a much better playhouse than we had in the first 
place. : 
We were careful to build the sides very straight. 
Show how the -new playhouse looked. 


The window of the new playhouse was larger than the 
old one. 

It was not the same shape as the old window. 

How did the first window look? 

How many sides had it? Were the sides equal ? 


The sides of the new window were not all the same 
length. 

This window had two long sides and two short sides. 

The top of the window and the bottom of the window 
were the short sides. 

The two long sides were vertical. 

Show how the new window looked. 


After we had finished building the new playhouse we 
built a new gate for the yard. 

The gate hung between two posts. 

These posts were set vertically. 

Show how the two posts looked. 


The gate was made of four bars laid horizontally. 

These four bars were held together by two bars placed 
vertically. } 

There was a vertical bar at each end of the gate 

Show the four bars laid horizontally. 

Show how you think the gate looked before it was hung 
between the two vertical posts. 


DIRECTION 85 


Can you show how the gate looked after it was hung 
between the vertical posts ? 


We stand vertically. Our bodies form a vertical line 
from the floor. 
The floor is horizontal. 


We will hold this pencil vertically. 
We will hold it horizontally. 


Draw a vertical line. 
Show how a horizontal line looks on paper. 


Can you think of anything in your house that has hori- 
zontal lines ? 
Name it. 


Can you think of anything that has vertical lines ? 
What is it? 


Name something that has both vertical and horizontal 
lines. 
Show how it looks on the board. 


The use of the plumb line and the bottle level should be 
continued until the children themselves are quick to discern 
variations from the standards. The teacher should return 
to this practice through the kindergarten and primary 
classes, and even in the intermediate classes, whenever the 
children’s buildings show lack of care and thought. 


sateen 





REPRESENTATION 


Make your work to be in keeping with your purpose and design— 
that is, when you make your figure you should consider who it is and 
what you wish it to be doing. 

If you have to represent a man either as moving, or lifting, or 
pulling or carrying a weight equal to his own weight, how ought you 


to fit the legs under his body? Feo Vie 





REPRESENTATION 1 
AcTION FIGURES 


In the Line Stories, the lines are symbols of action and 
express the children’s own personal thoughts. The action 
figure, or so-called ‘‘skeleton figure,” is accepted by the 
children, both as a symbol of motion and as an introduction 
to the representing of things as they actually look. Any- 
thing may stand for your own action to yourself, but when 
symbols are to be identified by other people they must be 
concrete and take understandable forms. 

To be understood by others, the line would have to repre- 
sent generally accepted appearance and not alone our per- 
sonal sensation. ° 

A few heaped up blocks might seem to a child a boat, a 
locomotive, a town or a castle, but to mean the same to 
others they must have some salient characteristic which 
would identify them and give the imagination an oppor- 
tunity to supply the deficiency. 

The representation of an object is not based on imitation, 
but on the impression which that object has made on the 
mind. This mental impression naturally depends on the 
development of the person. We would expect to find it of a 
simple and fundamental order in the life of a child. The 
baby’s first impulse is to recognize direction. He adds his 
‘recognition of motion as the most interesting thing in his 
life. 

As the boy watches a man running, he thinks of the fact 
of running, rather than of the appearance of the man. When 
his experience enlarges, he associates the general appearance 


of the man as he runs with the motion, 
89 


ar 








te irk 


. 


iagram for Action F 


Japanese D 


7: 


igures, 


91 


92 THE ART OF SEEING 


At first a straight mark might symbolize to a boy a man 
running; later, he would draw the legs in action, and so ex- 
press a general fact of motion, and through this become com- 
prehensible to his fellows. A straight line for the body of a 
man might express him to children in a highly satisfactory 
manner, though it would be meaningless to others. When a 
man runs, the line is inclined forward, and the poise of the 
body is expressed, rather than the body itself. 

Poise is a more important fact, in the expression of motion, 
than bulk. The child in his choice of salient characteristics 
is instinctively right. He is unhampered by knowledge of 
details, and sees the larger things which obey the general 
laws. 

The teacher must be exceedingly careful never to extin- 
guish this impulse for the sake of minor facts. The child 
should build on his own foundation, which is a true one as 
far as it goes. 

Children watch each other and grown-up people. Their 
definite interests, outside of their own affairs, will be in 
people, their actions and doings. This natural interest in 
people and in motion leads them to attempt to draw people 
doing things in their earliest pictures, but their unskilful 
fingers make an unintelligible mass of lines when they 
attempt a clothed figure, and the action they want to ex- 
press is lost in the confusion. Therefore, they are driven 
to emphasize the features, which is their only way to 
express the dramatic instinct when motion becomes un- 
attainable. 

A static figure with a large head, eyes, nose, and mouth, 
no body, and rigid fingers on outstretched arms, will not 
continue to satisfy an intelligent child. He repeats this 
drawing for years because he is helpless, and it has become 
a symbol to him. There is no reason why a more useful 


REPRESENTATION 93 


symbol should not be suggested at an early age, which will 
embody both his interest in motion and in people, and on 
which an accurate observation of proportion and action can 
be built. The action figure, which, no matter how crudely 
done, represents action because it eliminates everything 
except the essential parts of the body, supplies us with a 
fruitful symbol for the children’s use. 

These action figures are composed of poise and proportion. 

Poise, used in the general sense, is the relation of the 
different major parts of the body to each other. This mean- 
ing of the word includes stable and unstable poses of the 
body. | | 

In scientific terms, poise is the place of the centre of 
gravity in relation to the point of support. As we stand, the 
mass of the body is in a vertical line above the feet. In 
running, the body is inclined forward beyond the point of 
support, and as the action varies, the centre of gravity 
changes its place in relation to the permanent or momentary 
points of support. 

The centre of gravity, which is the point of average weight, 
always lies within the trunk of the body, so that, as far as 
representation is concerned, poise is the inclination of the 
trunk in relation to the head and limbs. 

Poise may be taught by calling the attention of the 
children to how they themselves feel as they perform the 
actions they try to express. Encourage them to identify 
themselves with the figure they are representing. 

This preliminary work in representation is confined to 
objects in one plane, and does not take into consideration, 
yet, bulk or separation. It is important to remember this, 
because the children’s drawings should not be expected to 
include matters that belong to bulk and separation. At 
this time, if the children were asked to draw a house, they 





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9. Action Figures Stories. By two boys of 4. 
95 


96 THE ART OF SEEING 


would be likely to draw it as if they could see both ends 
and the front at once, their thought being, however, in one 
plane. | | 

Here the children are mixed in their orders. Their repre- 
sentation is in one plane, but their thought by experience is 
in the order of the solid world. They will show this also in 
their idea of relative size, for their men and their houses are 
represented in one plane and of the same size. They have no 
idea of the effect that separation has on appearance. None 
of their toys represent relative size, and they feel no discrep- 
ancies when Noah, the elephant, and the rabbit are mixed in 
scale. 

Let the teacher ask them questions: 

How does your body feel when you are running? 

Is it straight or leaning forward? 

How does your head go? 

Do you hold your head back to breathe better, or do you 
put it forward? 

How do you hold your arms? 

When you are running fast, are your legs a long way 
apart or are they close together ° 

After fixing the children’s attention on how they them- 
selves feel, let one child run, walk, stand, sit, with the others 
watching to verify their sensations. Say to them: “‘The 
_ boy you are drawing will do just as you do, and if you feel 
as he does, your hand will draw him better.” 

This will lead the children, through their own personal 
experiences, to see what actually happens and to transfer 
their sensations to others. At this point begins the training 
of the eye in connection with personal experience. 

In the two diagrams immediately preceding the chapter 
on action figures, the same building up of the action figure is 
illustrated. 


REPRESENTATION 97 


The first diagram was drawn to illustrate the Woodbury 
Course in Observation. 

The second diagram was found in a Japanese book of 
many years ago, but only discovered by the authors shortly 
before the manuscript of the course was completed. It is 
included because of its confirmation of the teaching. 


Example 1 
ACTION 


LET THE CHILDREN ILLUSTRATE A STORY WITH ACTION 
FIGURES IN MOTION. 

The first action figures should consist of a small mass for 
a head, a line for the body, and jointed lines for the legs and 
arms. 

The shoulder and hip joints are unimportant, as they are 
fully seen only in one pose of the body. 

The teacher should not forget that, at this point, the 
children are beginning to consider, for the first time, the 
appearance of objects outside of themselves with a view to 
representing them. 

‘They first identify the figures with themselves, and later 
take them objectively. For this reason, it 1s necessary to 
give some time to establish the naw idea. 

The most effective teaching comes nearest to the child’s 
thought. All the comments on the action figures should 
begin by two questions which we ask in order that he shall 
begin to question himself and his own work in the same way. 

The first question is ‘‘Does your drawing tell the story ?”’ 
The second question is ‘‘Does your drawing tell the story 
well ?’’ For the first example, we only ask the first question. 
The teacher might say: ‘‘I am not sure what Tom’s man is 
doing. Joe, can you see what this man is doing? Tom, no 


98 THE ART OF SEEING 


one can guess what your man is about. Tell us. We want 
so much to know, but next time draw him so that we can 
tell the first time we look. If the man is supposed to be 
throwing a ball, he must have his arm up and his head back, 
so Joe will come out and let Tom look while he makes believe 
to throw a ball, and we will all see how a boy looks when he 
is doing that.”’ 

It is an excellent thing for the children to dramatize their 
stories before and after they are drawn, but they are not to 
copy each other, only to look at the action or “‘the way it 
goes’’ and remember for the next try. 


PROPORTION 


The second element in the action figure is proportion, 
which involves the principles of comparison, and calls for 
direct observation. 

Although the child’s first attempt at action figures will 
express motion, the proportion of the body will always be 
incorrect. This is because each part is taken for itself, and 
there is no conscious comparison of one part with another. 

As the children have no sense of the relation of the parts, 
the result in the drawing is likely to be grotesque, though 
still representing action. The reason for their failure is that 
they have no conception of appearances. 

As far as their sensation is concerned, they feel their arms 
reach, their legs move or their body fall. But there is 
nothing in arms, legs or body in themselves to make them 
aware of their bulk or relative size. 

No one feels the proportions of his body except in relation 
to some outside comparison. 

Bodily proportion is an external fact, outside of siete 
personal sensation, and has to be presented to the mind in 
external form. 


REPRESENTATION 99 


We think of ourselves as being, other people as existing. 
This thought may be presented to the children with refer- 
ence to themselves, through considering the proportions of 
others and their own. For instance, a drawing with too long 
arms should be questioned with reference to the children’s 
own arms and their power to reach. 

In teaching the child to observe correct proportion, ask 
him if the head of his figure should be so much larger than 
the body, or the arms so much longer than the legs. 

Use one member of the body as a measure for the others. 


Example 2 
PROPORTION 


LET THE CHILDREN ILLUSTRATE A STORY WITH ACTION 
FIGURES HAVING SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE MORE IM- 
PORTANT PROPORTIONS. 


For Example 2, the first question, ‘‘Does your drawing 
tell the story ?’’ should always be followed by ‘‘Why doesn’t 
it?’’ when the drawing does not tell the story so that at 
least a fair guess can be made at what the child had in his 
mind. Children are much more logical than we suppose 
them to be. If a child has drawn two action figures with 
long bodies, short legs, and one having no arms, he does not 
express what his figures are meant to be doing. He must 
tell us in words, for he has failed to do so in graphic language. 
‘‘These boys are playing ball,” he explains. The teacher 
answers: ‘‘How could that poor boy throw the ball with 
no arms? And the other one could not run to catch the ball 
if he had no knees to bend and his body was twice as long 
as his legs. Now, Jack, come out here where we can see you, 
and we will tie your legs together at the knees so that you 


100 THE ART OF SEEING 


will have a long body and short, stiff legs like the boy in 
your picture. How would you walk or run?” 

Jack answers the question himself and for the whole class, 
and they all begin to consider cause and effect and to ques- 
tion their own work. 

If a child has told his story clearly because of dramatic 
action, yet without a single good proportion and with the 
figures too small or in one corner of the paper, the second 
question, ‘‘Have you told your story well?”’ is asked, with 
these comments: ‘‘We cannot all see the figures, because 
they are so small. Paper is never wasted when we want 
more paper to try again, but when we have left half our 
paper empty and failed to fill the space well.’’ In the older 
class this is the place for suggestions of all kinds that will 
excite the children’s desire not only to express fully what 
they have in their minds, but to consider whether their 
thought is clear and whether they have told their story 
adequately, for their own satisfaction as well as to be intel- 
ligible to others. 

Example 3 


RELATIVE SIZE 


LET THE CHILDREN ILLUSTRATE A STORY WITH ACTION 
FIGURES IN PAIRS AND GROUPS, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE 
TO THE RELATIVE SIZE OF THE FIGURES. 


The figures should be drawn with reference to relative 
size, that is, tall and short people, and in reference to relative 
action between the figures. The story of the association of 
the people must be shown in their relative poses. 

The impulses of the children will be to go wrong in the 
matter of relative sizes, because they have always been 
accustomed to consider each object by itself. So far they 
have been individualists. Now they are passing from each 





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10. Illustrations with Single-Line Action Figures. By a boy of 14. 
101 


102 THE ART OF SEEING 


considering himself the one person in the world, to being 
one of the many. Here begins their conscious judgment. 
As soon as they compare they begin to weigh and judge. 
The development now is from the relative proportion of 
the different parts of the figure to the relative importance 
of the figures to each other; that is, from the relative parts of 
a unit to the relation of different units. In this way the 
association of the mental and the graphic world is completed. 


Example 4 
COMPARISON 


LET THE CHILDREN ILLUSTRATE A STORY AND ADD BULK 
TO THE ACTION FIGURES BY DOUBLING THE LINES. 


Insist on having comparison as the fundamental thought, 
and so point it with the story and every other means as to 
make it habitual. 

Comparison must be considered one of the basic mental 
habits which underlie clear judgment in every field. 

Direct the children to look at the general proportions and 
bulk of their companions. This will help them to clothe the 
figures from direct observation. 

The attention of the children has been called to relative 
length. Now we call their attention to relative bulk by 
drawing fat and thin people as well as tall and short ones. 

Wash or colored chalk may be used to fill in the figures. 

When an action figure has good proportion as well as 
action, the child should be allowed to draw it with doubled 
lines as a recognition that he has approximately achieved 
the true proportions of a person in his drawing. He should 
be told that to add bulk and later clothes to a badly made 
skeleton can lead nowhere, as it only covers up defects 
and builds from poor observation. 





11. Showing Transition from Single to Double Line in Action Figures. 


By children of 13 and 14. 


103 


104 THE ART OF SEEING 


A supervisor will sometimes be told that the children do 
not like action figures. When this is the case it is always 
because the teacher has been unable to present them to the 
children in dramatic form and so gain their interest suffi- 
ciently to win their unconscious co-operation in breaking bad 
habits which even the youngest children will have formed. 

There are two ways of using action figures in class. 

Teachers either accept the logical way of training the 
children to use action figures as a basis for all the figures 
in their imaginative drawings, thickening and clothing 
them at once, when good proportions have become instinc- 
tive, and finally leaving the figure and drawing ‘‘action lines”’ 
such as any painter or illustrator would use when he draws. 
In the second way they do not require the action figures in 
imaginative drawings, only using them as a training for 
improvement in action and proportion. In the latter case, 
while there should be continuous improvement in the draw- 
ings, the improvement will be slow, with more danger of 
careless habits creeping in and far less chance of the children 
acquiring action lines as a result of a natural development 
of the training. 

Even when action figures are used in imaginative drawing, 
the teacher should see them, from time to time before the 
children clothe them, or some such result will follow as in 
the case of the little girl who confided to a supervisor that 
it didn’t much matter whether the proportions were good, 
as the clothes covered them up, anyway. 

When the children start to clothe the figures, they will 
begin to wonder how special clothes look and hang and some 
of them will feel lost as they must forego their arbitrary 
habits. The only solution is observation. Get them to look 
at each other and older people, and see how blouses, dresses, 
sweaters take the shape of the figure underneath. 


REPRESENTATION 105 


During the interval, some of the children will not like the 
looks of their drawings and will miss their own more fin- 





12. Showing Transition from Double-Line Action Figures to Clothed 
Action Figures. By children of 13 and 14. 


ished-looking pictures and their bad habits, but if the 
teacher perseveres, the effort will be worth while and will 
bring great future profit. 


106 THE ART OF SEEING 


Example 5 


LET THE CHILDREN ILLUSTRATE A STORY WITH ACTION 
FIGURES IN BULK AND DRESSED, COMBINING PEOPLE AND 
HOUSES, PEOPLE AND TREES, WITH SPECIAL ATTENTION TO 
RELATIVE SIZE. 


At this point the teacher is to take up all such things 
as may be expressed in one plane; that is to say, objects 
which are not separated by depth. 

These things are like shadow pictures on the wall, but 
not necessarily like silhouettes, because facts may be shown 
which the outline alone would not include. 

All of the objects are at an equal distance from the ob- 
server, and this fact should indicate the class of stories and 
events which may be employed in illustration. 

These limits must be carefully preserved by the teacher, 
for full representation includes other principles which are to 
be developed later. 

The child may draw his house of any size on the paper, 
for that is representation, but, having established a scale, his 
man must be able to enter the door of the house. The child 
has established an order that entails relations for which he 
is responsible. 

All this discussion as to relative physical size has a later 
parallel development in mental and moral proportion. 
These proportions are the symbols of the mental and moral 
life. 

The method used in discussing drawings which are the 
result of Example 5 should be used in all imaginative draw- 
ings: ‘‘Have you told your story? Is it a good story to tell 
in line or would it be better to tell it in words? Have you 
told your story well? Could the man get into the door of 


REPRESENTATION 107 


his house? Would you call that a tree or a bush if it is only 
as tall as the man? Could the boy picking apples step from 
one rung to the other of his ladder? Why, no; the rungs are 
four feet apart if he is four feet tall.”’ 

Children never take this sort of comment as criticism and 
are invariably interested, for they make the discovery them- 
selves of the discrepancies in their drawings and are led to 
them by the teacher’s questions. The way an automobile 
or a wagon is made, how the wagon is hitched to a horse— 
even if no one knows (not even the teacher) these matters 
should be inquired into, and a picture should be consulted 
when the objects themselves cannot be observed. 

Ask the children to draw the same picture at different 
seasons of the year, on a windy day and a still day, or to 
express conditions of climate and circumstance, so that the 
teacher and class will be able to tell the conditions from the 
picture. The following examples of this practice are very 
successful for work during vacation or days out of school 
because of illness. 

Example 1.—The children are asked to keep a land log 
every day for as many days as the period lasts. On each 
day a record is to be kept of temperature, weather condi- 
tions, direction of the wind, etc., and a drawing is to be 
made of the most significant happening during that day, 
all on one large sheet of paper. 

Example 2.—The children are to consider themselves as 
shipwrecked sailors or starving explorers approaching a 
tribe with whom they cannot communicate by words. 
They are to make a series of drawings which are to be used 
to procure the necessary food, shelter, clothes, and general 
succor, which they cannot otherwise obtain. If the class 
and the teacher cannot read these graphic messages clearly 
and do not know what is needed, it is obvious that the pe- 


108 THE ART OF SEEING 


titioners might starve or freeze to death before they suc- 
ceeded in explaining their needs. 

Example 3.—Illustrations of fairy and folk stories, Mother 
Goose and Atsop’s Fables, especially those containing giants, 
pigmies, and animals. 

The teacher must be warned, against urging the children 
to observe anything of minor importance in the figures, 
such as features, hands, and feet. These details will be 
observed later when they can be assigned more surely to 
their relative places in the order which the children are 
building. 

After the children have achieved fairly good proportions 
in their action figures, and have been allowed to add bulk 
by doubling the line, the fundamental interest, which is 
motion, will occasionally be lost or impaired in the transi- 
tion. In one case, when the teacher was suggesting to a 
small boy that motion was the fact he had lost, the child 
said: ‘‘Yes, I see. Johnny is jumping and what I want to 
do is to keep the jump in Johnny.” He saw the point and 
was able to dramatize it. If motion is lost in the transition 
from action figures in single lines to action figures in bulk, 
or in the further developments when clothing the figures 
and making the change to action lines, the same proce- 
dure should be followed. A return must be made to the 
former practice until the motion can be carried over without 
loss. 

The transition from drawing action figures in doubled 
lines and clothing them from observation to the dropping 
of the action figure completely is the final one, and needs 
some definite preparation. 

The action figure has served its purpose as a symbol of the 
human figure in motion, on which has been built up, through 
observation of nature, the power to see and to draw figures 


REPRESENTATION 109 


in fair proportion while preserving action and the interest 
in action at every stage. This figure may be dropped when 
the pupil has acquired, through observation and practice, a 
subconscious standard for proportion and motion that will 
enable him to supply in a few lines all that he has learned, 
as he observed and expressed motion and proportion. 
Such lines are known as action lines. That nothing may be 
lost in this transition from action figures to action lines 
there must be some practice of action lines in connection 
with memory drawing. 

This practice may be found under Memory Drawing for 
Intermediate Grades, and must come during the short period 
given for direct training in the Observation Course, as it 
cannot be carried out in co-ordination with other subjects, 
and yet is needed for that co-ordination. The children’s 
power to draw people with skill and facility in all their 
future work depends upon this training. 


REPRESENTATION 2 


EvERY-DaAy PERSPECTIVE 


There are several elements that contribute to form our 
visual impression of external objects. They are mass, color, 
and the variations of light, with all of the complicated re- 
lations due to the interaction of these changing quantities. 
We are unconscious of these complications and simply know 
that we see, gaining knowledge of sight by practical experi- 
ence, and in the end accumulating enough information to 
serve the ordinary purposes of life. 

We become able, in a general way, to trace cause from 
effect; a power, however, which is largely subconscious. It 
would be difficult for the ordinary person to draw a man 


110 THE ART OF SEEING 


who should seem to be a quarter of a mile away, though 
there would be no hesitation in assigning him that distance 
if actually in sight. Something in the appearance of that 
man tells of his distance, and if that something is given in 
the drawing the story of distance is clearly told. 

Appearances follow law, but it is useless to lay down 
these laws as abstractions and expect them to have meanings 
to any one but a specialist. Theoretical Perspective will 
make it possible to construct a drawing that will give the 
impression of distance and solid form, but it is so outside 
of ordinary experience that it fails to make the necessary 
connection and becomes mechanical. We can reach the 
facts more directly through the analysis of our own actual 
experience and later, if it is necessary, use the theoretical 
as a means of verification. We co-ordinate the facts we have 
and arrive at our laws through their results. 

Perspective is the general name for the laws that govern 
the apparent size and shape of objects at varying distances 
from the eye. A small object will fill the entire field of 
vision if held near the eyes, but it will fast lose its impor- 
tance if carried further away and cease to exist altogether, 
lost in a world it formerly covered. We come to the point 
where we know that the apparent size of an object depends 
on its distance from us, and later by the diminished size we 
judge distance. 

The man we see a quarter of a mile away is so small for 
a man that he must be far from us. To measure by dimin- 
ished size is so instinctive that we are no more conscious of 
it than of breathing, and never give it a thought. We say 
the man must be far off because he looks far off, but it 
would require some thought to say what that particular 
look might be. Our study of Perspective has, as its special 
object, the putting in order of our common visual experi- 





Q ax RANTS 


13. Illustrating Problems in Every-Day Perspective I. By two boys of 13. 


111 


112 THE ART OF SEEING 


ences, and finding through them a simple means of express- 
ing them graphically. 

We begin with what every one knows. Every object in 
the world is either higher than we are, lower than we are, 
or at our level, and with one exception its apparent shape 
depends on where it is. The exception is the sphere, which 
has the same form viewed from all points. When we speak 
of our level, it should be taken to mean the level of our 
eyes. Draw a horizontal line on the paper to represent the 
level of the observer’s eyes. Anything that is higher than he 
is will be drawn above that line and whatever is lower will 
come below it. 

This line is known as the horizon line and is found in 
Nature where a horizontal plane meets the sky, but it is 
rarely possible to see the true horizon on account of the 
many things which obstruct, and it is simpler to take it as 
the line of division between what is above us and what is 
below without referring it to Nature at all and call it the 
Eye-level Line. . 

The significance of such a line is easily explained, for 
even the six-year-old child knows there are things higher 
and lower than he is and can use the line to divide them. 
The height of the observer and the line that corresponds to 
it are the beginning of every story. 

The observer’s look is supposed to be a level gaze; not 
up or down. 

In the first problems it is well to use action figures, as 
they give motion and relative proportion with little trouble. 

Tell the children in a few words the whole purpose of 
the teaching somewhat after this manner: ‘“‘We are going 
to find out how to draw people and things when they look 
smaller because they are far away from us, or bigger be- 
cause they are near us. Then our pictures will look as much 


REPRESENTATION 113 


like what we see as grown-up people’s pictures look like the 
world before our eyes.” 

The drawing is to represent something seen by the per- 
son making it, and he does not appear in it any more than 
he does in what he is looking at. He says in effect, ‘‘From 
the place where I am I see these things happening,”’ and he 
draws them instead of putting the story into words. 

Place comes first. If we are high up much of the world 
is below us, and we look down on many things, but if we 
are at a low level our outlook is restricted. This point 
should be carefully talked over with the children so that 
their impulse in planning a drawing should be to say, 
‘‘Where am I as I see the story happening ?”’ and the line 
separating what is above from what is below naturally 
follows. 

This line can never be omitted in any drawing where 
perspective is used. It isa statement of the conditions under 
which the objects are seen, and the shape of all of the ob- 
jects depends on it. Like time and place in a narrative, 
these are the conditions under which all of the events de- 
scribed are happening. Figures unrelated to a common 
horizon would be as incongruous as a story of fact that 
should mix to-day and to-morrow. 

As the Eye-level Line depends on one’s own position, 
it is a very personal matter, a combination of one’s height 
and the elevation of the place where one is standing. When 
the line is drawn. the statement is made, ‘‘I am at this 
place,’’ and the question follows: ‘‘How is the rest of the 
world situated in regard to me?”’ 

If the child is standing on the ground, his actual height 
is the measure, and he directly compares it with the peo- 
ple and objects he draws. The man he puts into the pic- 
ture is a head taller than he is, and so the man’s head comes 


114 THE ART OF SEEING 


always above the Eye-level Line. If it is a child of his own 
height, they share the Eye-level Line, and the head comes 
on the line. Smaller figures than the observer come below 
the Eye-level Line. The standard is made by the person 
who sees. For the smaller children the thought may be 
put in this way: “‘Your eyes come just to the top button 
of father’s waistcoat when you are standing side by side. 
That button is the exact height of your eyes, and the rest 
of father is above you. When you draw him, that button 
has to be on the horizon line, because it is just the height 
of your eyes.” 

The location of a point of common height in the objects 
represented is important. Figures below the eye would not 
have this advantage, though they could be judged indirectly 
by what they lacked in height compared to the observer. 
To ask what proportion of the figure is above or below you 
compared to the observer’s height, will always be a help to 
clear thought. 

Begin the Example by estimating the height of the ob- 
server in feet in order to know what elevation the Eye-level 
Line represents and to decide what should come above or 
below the line in whole or in part. 

The drawing in every case is to represent some incident 
in a story. 


First Example 


LET THE OBSERVER DRAW A PERSON OF HIS OWN HEIGHT 
AT A SHORT DISTANCE FROM HIM. PLACE A MAN AND A SMALL 
CHILD BY THE SIDE OF THE FIRST FIGURE. DRAW THE EYE- 
LEVEL LINE FIRST. 


The head of the first figure will come on the Eye-level 
Line, the head of the man above the line, and the child who 
is smaller than the observer will be entirely below the line. 


REPRESENTATION 115 


Begin each Example by making the Eye-level Line state- 
ment to the children: 

“Everything in the world that you can see is either 
higher than you are, lower than you are, or just as high as 
your eyes. Draw a line across the paper to divide the 
things that are higher from the things that are lower in the 
picture and to show where your eyes are. We call this line 
the Eye-level Line.”’ 

Suggested Story. Tommy’s father is taking Tommy and 
his baby sister to the circus. It is the first time that Susan, 
the baby, has been to a circus. They.are in a hurry to get 
there. Draw Tommy first. He is your age and your height, 
we will say four feet high. Where would his head come if he 
was just as tall as you? To find out ask this question: ‘‘Is 
the person or thing I am going to draw higher than my 
eyes, lower than my eyes, or just as high’?”’ Then you will 
know whether to draw what you see above the Eye-level 
Line, below the line, or on the line. Now draw Tommy’s 
father. He is a tall man, six feet tall. Ask the question 
again to know where his head would come. Now draw the 
baby sister. She is three feet high. Where would her head 
come? Ask the question: “‘Where would all their feet come 
if they were standing side by side ?”’ 


Second Example 


PLACE A PERSON THE SAME HEIGHT AS THE OBSERVER AT 
DIFFERENT DISTANCES IN THE PICTURE. DRAW THE EYE- 
LEVEL LINE FIRST. 


The head of the figure, being of the same height as the 
observer, will always be on the line of equal heights, no 
matter how far away, but as a figure appears to shorten 


116 THE ART OF SEEING 


with distance, the feet will come nearer and nearer to the 
Eye-level Line as the distance increases, until the figure 
shortens to nothing as the limit of vision is reached. 

If a pencil point is put anywhere below the line of equal 
heights it will represent some point on the ground in sight 
of the observer, and it can be the place of the feet of a 
person. In the case of this problem where the heights of 
the observer and the people in sight are the same, any 
vertical drawn from the Eye-level Line to a point below 
the line represents the apparent height of a figure at that 
place. | 
There is much to be learned from this example, for it 
shows clearly that the farther away the point is on the 
ground, the nearer it is to the Eye-level Line, and gives 
some idea of the rate at which a vertical diminishes as it 
is removed from the observer. Drawings of this example 
must be right, provided every head is cut by the Eye-level 
Line. 

Considerable time should be taken with this example, 
as the drawings will have a look of distance, which will be 
established as a standard in the minds of the children, and 
they will be more critical of mistakes when the conditions 
are complicated. 

Begin each example by making the Eye-level Line state- 
ment to the children. 

Do not attempt the Second Example until the First 
Example has been practised with varied and repeated stories 
and the Eye-level Line question is established so firmly in 
the children’s minds that they ask it of themselves. Then 
say to them: ‘‘We all know that everything we can see looks 
smaller as it gets farther away from us, and we all know 
that the Eye-level Line divides what is above us from what 
is below us. Now you will hear something that you don’t 


REPRESENTATION LIT 


know and that you must remember, as you remember to 
ask the question about. the Eye-level Line. Everything that 
we can see as 1t gets farther from us and smaller in the distance 
gets nearer to the Eye-level Line until 1t vanishes from our 
sight on that line.” 

Take the story used in the First Example of a family 
composed of a child the height of the observer, a parent, and 
a smaller child, and continue the suggested story or another 
similar story in this way: ‘‘We are going to draw Tommy 
again with his father and baby sister going to the circus. 
They are near the door of the circus and quite in time, so 
that we will draw them at the left side of the picture. On 
the right side we are going to draw another family of the same 
kind and size, far off in the distance, running because they 
are late for the circus. They are so far away that they look 
very small. 7 

‘“How shall we draw a boy as tall as Tommy and you as 
he gets farther away and smaller and smaller the farther he 
goes? Everything that we can see as it gets farther from 
us and smaller in the distance gets nearer to the Eye-level 
Line. Now Tommy’s head is on that Line, and so it can get 
no nearer to it. What part of Tommy can get nearer the 
Line? His feet of course. 

“Let us draw for practice, on another sheet of paper, a 
boy as tall as you and Tommy, showing how he would get 
smaller as he went farther away. We will draw six Tommies 
with their heads on the line and their feet coming nearer the 
line until Tommy becomes nothing but a dot on the line. 

‘“‘It may take us several lessons to find out how to draw 
a whole family so that they will look as if they were run- 
ning in the distance. When we can draw them we will put 
them on the right-hand side of our first paper and finish our 
story.” 


118 THE ART OF SEEING 


Third Example 


PLACE A FIGURE ONE-THIRD TALLER THAN THE OBSERVER 
AT DIFFERENT DISTANCES IN THE PICTURE. DRAW THE 
EYE-LEVEL LINE FIRST. 


One-third of the figure will always come above it, and 
two-thirds below, whatever the actual length of the line may 
be. As the vertical grows shorter with distance the head will 
come down to meet the line and the feet will rise; the point 
on the figure, however, that has a height equal to that of the 
observer, two-thirds in this case, will remain always on the 
Eye-level Line. The vertical diminishes at both ends at an 
unequal rate in the case of a two-thirds division, since both 
ends merge at the Eye-level Line. If the division were half, 
the rate of diminishing would be equal. This problem also 
must be repeated until it is thoroughly understood. 

When a figure is cut at any point by the Eye-level Line, 
it is cut at that same point wherever it may be, and this 
makes it possible to give always its true height for its situa- 
tion. If the top button of a man’s waistcoat is at the level 
of the eye, it will stay at that level wherever the man may 
be, and it divides him proportionally. With one fixed point 
it is always possible to take advantage of the proportional 
divisions. 

With younger children, when the Second, Third, Fourth, 
and Fifth Examples are given in separate lessons, repeat the 
two Eye-level Line statements as indicated in the Second 
Example. 

Continue the story in connection with that of the Second 
and Third Examples as follows: ‘‘We are going to draw a 
man as tall as Tommy’s father and show how as he gets 
farther away he grows smaller and smaller. If Tommy grew 


REPRESENTATION 119 


smaller and farther away as his feet came nearer the line, 
how would Tommy’s father have to be drawn to look farther 
away ? What parts of him would come nearer the line? His 
head and his feet of course. Let us draw Tommy’s father six 
times, with his head and his feet coming nearer the line 
every time until he becomes a dot on the Eye-level Line.”’ 


Fourth Example 


PLACE A FIGURE SHORTER THAN THE OBSERVER AT DIF- 
FERENT DISTANCES IN THE PICTURE. DRAW THE EYE-LEVEL 
LINE FIRST. 


The whole of the figure will come below the line. The 
feet, being on the ground, will rise as the figure recedes, as 
in the previous problems. The head, being below the eye, 
will be below the Eye-level Line, but will rise toward it until 
in the extreme distance it will merge in the line. 

There can be no confusion so long as it is remembered 
that what is below the eye can never come above the Eye- 
level Line, and can only touch it in the extreme distance. 
It will be serviceable to think of things below the observer 
in feet, as an easy means of comparison. 

If the observer is five feet high and the figure in the picture 
four feet, all of the vertical distance below the line represents 
five feet, and space shown between the head and the line 
is one foot. This foot looks largest at the nearest point and 
diminishes to nothing in the distance. A more general way of 
thinking would be: This figure is a little shorter than the 
observer; therefore, the head would come a little below the 
line, but getting nearer to it as the distance increases. 

Figures wholly above the eye can only happen when they 
are on some elevation and do not answer the conditions of the 


120 THE ART OF SEEING 


preceding Examples, which apply only to what is seen as 
the observer stands with a horizontal plane before him. 

Continue the story in connection with that of the Sec- 
ond and Third Examples after repeating the two Eye-level 
Line statements as follows: “‘We are going to draw a girl 
the size of Tommy’s baby sister, Susan, and show as she 
gets farther away she gets smaller and smaller. How 
would we draw this baby girl so that she would come nearer 
and nearer the Eye-level Line? All of her would have to 
come nearer the line as she went farther away. Let us 
draw Baby Susan six times, growing smaller and smaller 
~ until she looks like a dot on the line. 


Fifth Example 


DRAW GROUPS OF FIGURES, BOTH TALLER AND SHORTER 
THAN THE OBSERVER, AT VARIOUS DISTANCES IN THE PIC- 
TURE. DRAW THE EYE-LEVEL LINE FIRST. 


This Example combines the preceding Examples with no 
new features. The stories that illustrate it should be of a 
definite order and avoid haphazard arrangements. Specify 
the size of the principal figures with the part they act in 
the story. 

Begin each Example by making the two Eye-level Line 
statements, or asking one of the children to make the 
statements in his own words. The type story for the 
Fifth Example was told after the Second Example. Tell 
the story again and remind the children that they now 
have the knowledge to complete that story in line. Refer 
them to the practice in Examples Two, Three, and Four 
and to the Eye-level Line statements. Let them make their 
own mistakes, and bring out in the discussion of their pic- 
tures where their thought has failed in telling the story. 


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121 


122 THE ART OF SEEING 


Sixth Example 


DRAW FIGURES AND GROUPS WITH THE STATION-POINT OF 
THE OBSERVER RAISED. DRAW THE EYE-LEVEL LINE FIRST. 


In this Example we add to the height of the observer 
the height at which he stands above the level ground. If 
a child five feet high stands on a box three feet high his 
Eye-level Line is eight feet, and all things less than eight 
feet come below it. It is as though he were a person eight 
feet high. The Example is similar to Example Four, except 
that in the present case the vertical height below the Eye- 
level Line represents a greater number of feet. 

An Eye-level Line on the paper tells nothing until the 
height 1s stated. A single figure drawn in reference to it 
will state the height as definitely as words. For this reason 
the teacher should be able to read the terms of the problem 
from the drawing, testing it in that way. 

All of the preceding Examples have been of figures and 
groups on a level plane in front of the observer, and their 
relation to the Eye-level Line has been a consistént one, 
since they were all under one condition. If, however, a small 
hill was in sight, which being higher than the observer 
would come above the Eye-level Line, a man standing on 
the top would be all above the line, while if he were at the 
same distance in the picture and standing at the base of 
the hill he would be partly below the line. His actual 
length would be the same whether he stood on top of the 
hill or at its foot, for the apparent height of a line depends 
on its distance from the eye and not on its place. This is a 
guide as to his size, and his height above the Eye-level 
Line is accounted for by the height of the hill. He is in 
effect a portion of a vertical, standing on a plane made up 
of his height and that of the hill. 


REPRESENTATION 123 


Imagine a pole the height of the hill and our man stand- 
ing on its tip, and we have the same condition. If the pole 
is moved away, or the hill, it shortens like any other ver- 
tical until base and top merge at the Eye-level Line. Be- 
hind every hill or other object that is higher than the ob- 
server is the Eye-level Line, which marks the extent to which 
we could see if there were no obstructions. Above that 
line is sky and below, the ground; the line itself is the edge 
of the world. 

Trees, buildings, and other irregular objects give no 
special trouble if the Eye-level Line is remembered. The 
conception of the size of a tree is helped if its relation to a 
possible figure standing by its side is considered... The tree 
is a vertical, diminishing with distance in the same manner as 
the figures we have been considering, and obeys the same 
laws. 

All verticals of moderate height will disappear at a point 
on the horizon. This means that all verticals below the 
eye will disappear anyway and most of those above it. A 
range of mountains may be seen above the apparent horizon, 
but if the power of vision could be increased enough the 
mountains would merge in the horizon line before they 
were lost to sight. The curvature of the earth in such a 
case would become an element to be considered. 

The Sixth Example introduces a new idea to the children 
by which, as they are still identifying themselves with the 
observer, they look at the world from a higher or lower 
place, plus their own height, instead of from their own 
height on a level plane. It is necessary to have a full dis- 
cussion of this subject with the children before telling the 
story, in order that the Eye-level Line should again be es- 
tablished as representing the level of the observer’s eyes, 
wherever he may be. 


124 THE ART OF SEEING 


Tell the children to repeat the two Eye-level Line state- 
ments in their own words. Ask the children these questions: 
‘If you climb a tree or are standing on a hill can you see 
more or less of the world?”’ “‘If you are sitting or lying 
down can you see more or less than if you were standing 
up?” “If you can see more of the world from a high place 
than from a low one, where would you put your Eye-level 
Line in order to get all the things you see into the picture 
higher or lower on the paper?” “‘If you were sitting on the 
beach and could see much less of the world than if you were 
standing up, where would you put your Eye-level Line on 
the paper ?”’ 

For the.first story it is best to repeat a familiar one; for 
instance, a child four feet high is standing on his piazza, 
which is five feet above the ground, making his Eye-level 
Line nine feet high. He is watching the two families in the 
story for Example Two going to the circus. Add to the 
story two trees twenty feet high near his house. If the 
children need variety, suggest other similar stories. After 
the first lesson on this example a great variety of stories 
may be told, many of which the children should tell them- 
selves. 


Seventh Example 


DRAW FIGURES AND GROUPS FROM A LOWERED STATION- 
POINT. LET THE OBSERVER BE SITTING ON THE GROUND. 
PEOPLE OF ORDINARY HEIGHT WILL COME ABOVE THE EYE- 
LEVEL LINE, WHICH WILL CUT THEM ABOUT AT THE KNEES. 
DRAW THE EYE-LEVEL LINE FIRST. 


Repeat some of the discussion about the observer on dif- 
ferent heights as suggested for Example Six, and repeat the 
same story told for that Example with the person looking 
on sitting down. Always refer to the Eye-level Line state- 


REPRESENTATION 125 


ments in any difficulty. The teacher will find that he 
needs these statements as much as his pupils need them. 


Eighth Example 


DRAW FIGURES AND GROUPS ON VARIOUS ELEVATIONS 
ABOVE THE LEVEL AT WHICH THE OBSERVER STANDS. DRAW 
THE EYE-LEVEL LINE FIRST. 


The stories for Example Eight may be of children picking 
fruit at different levels in a tree, the observer being on the 
ground; or coasters on a hill, the observer having just fin- 
ished his slide. After the first lesson on any problem a great 
variety of stories should be told, generally by the children. 
After this example the teacher should suggest that the 
children draw a story, each choosing his own place for the 
observer. If the children think of what they are doing, 
teachers should be able to tell when they look at their pic- 
tures where the observer 1s supposed to be in every case. The 
teacher should always test the drawings in this way. 


Ninth Example 


DRAW A STRAIGHT RAILROAD TRACK WITH TELEGRAPH 
POLES ON EITHER SIDE FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF A PER- 
SON STANDING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE TRACK AND LOOKING 
IN THE DIRECTION OF THE RAILS. DRAW THE EYE-LEVEL 
LINE FIRST. 


Draw the Eye-level Line, which is always at right an- 
gles to the direction in which we are looking. The rails are 
actually parallel, but as all dimensions grow smaller as they 
recede, the distance between the rails appears to lessen un- 
til it disappears altogether, and the rails meet at a point 
on the Eye-level Line. The ties themselves, though always 


126 THE ART OF SEEING 


parallel to the Eye-level Line, not only shorten but seem to 
grow nearer together as they recede. 

The poles will diminish in the way of all verticals, and 
finally disappear at the same point as the rails. 

All of these changes of direction (as in the case of the 
rails) and dimensions (as with the poles and ties) are due to 
the one fact that all things seem to grow smaller as they are 
removed from the observer. 

To look at this in another way, the width of the paper 
at the bottom of the picture represents all that we see im- 
mediately in front of us; that is, as the observer looks to- 
ward the horizon without turning his head to right or left 
the width of the space seen, beginning about ten feet from 
the observer where he first sees the ground, might measure 
actually fifty feet and is represented by the width of the 
picture at the bottom. In the picture the Eye-level Line 
has this same measurement, but it may represent a number 
of miles instead of feet. A length of fifty feet on the Eye- 
level Line would be simply a point; therefore, if we draw 
lines from the ends of this foreground width of fifty feet at 
the bottom of the picture to the centre of the Eye-level 
Line, any horizontal between these converging lines will 
represent fifty feet at that place. 

To put this in terms of experience, let us think of stand- 
ing by the side of a boat at a wharf, so near that neither 
bow nor stern is in sight without turning the head, and con- 
sider if this same boat were miles away on the horizon how 
small it would be and how many hundred such boats it 
would take to measure the length of the Eye-level Line 
before us, or how long a time it would take such a boat to 
travel the length of that line. The width at the bottom of 
the picture is practically represented by a point on the 
horizon which is called the Centre of Vision. 


REPRESENTATION 127 


Tenth Example 


DRAW A RAILROAD TRACK UNDER THE SAME CONDITIONS 
AS BEFORE FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF A PERSON STAND- 
ING ON ONE OF THE RAILS. DRAW THE EYE-LEVEL LINE 
FIRST. 


As the observer is looking directly along the track the 
rail he is standing on is at right angles to the Eye-level 
Line. The other rail, being parallel, seems to converge and 
disappear at the same point on the Eye-level Line. The 
telegraph poles would very nearly coincide with one rail, 
but not with the other. It must be remembered that a 
vertical is always vertical, no matter where it is—the length 
is all that seems to change. 


Eleventh Example 


DRAW THE RAILROAD TRACK FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF 
AN OBSERVER STANDING TWICE ITS WIDTH TO THE RIGHT 
OF IT. DRAW THE EYE-LEVEL LINE FIRST. 


Both rails would slant from left to right and disappear at 
the same place on the Eye-level Line. 

The point to be made in these railroad examples is that 
horizontal parallel lines converge as they recede and meet at 
a point on the eye-level line, slanting up to it if below the 
eye and down to it if above. This is true of a road or a 
path that crosses the picture at any angle with the Eye- 
level Line, for it will grow narrower as it recedes and will 
come to a point on that line either within or outside of 
the picture limits. 

These examples are stories in themselves, and when the 
children understand them such conditions when they ap- 


128 — THE ART OF SEEING 


pear in their imaginative sketches will be drawn correctly 
and without difficulty. 

Although it has been found that children of six and seven 
can be given the first problems in Every-Day Perspective, it 
is not to be expected that they can grasp complicated ex- 
amples at that age, or.that they should be hurried in any 
way. The teaching of Every-Day Perspective should be com- 
pleted, in any case, in the secondary grades, though it may 
be begun in the primary classes and even used at the end of 
a kindergarten training. 


Twelfth Example 


DRAW A TWO-STORY HOUSE FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF 
AN OBSERVER STANDING ON THE GROUND. DRAW THE EYE- 
LEVEL LINE FIRST. 


The perspective of buildings is more difficult than the 
problems we have already considered. The verticals in 
buildings are simple, for they behave like any other verti- 
cals we see and follow the laws we have already taken up 
in drawing the figures. The horizontals, however, have a 
way of their own, which is harder to follow and much less 
obvious. 

A horizontal line parallel to the Eye-level Line, that is to 
say, at right angles to the direction in which we are look- 
ing, is always horizontal and parallel, wherever it may be. 
Like all other lines, it shortens with distance. 

A horizontal line which is not at right angles to the di- 
rection in which we look slants toward the Eye-level Line 
—downward if it is above the eye, and upward if it is below 
the eye. 

These are the main facts of parallel perspective. They 
are, however, of little value to us unless we can use them 


REPRESENTATION 129 


to explain some familiar appearance which we have taken 
for granted until the time has come to draw it. 

To draw houses correctly at this point is not to be ex- 
pected. It is possible, however, from the knowledge already 
gained and with an appeal to general knowledge to give 
them an appearance of rightness. Proportions can be ex- 
pected if they are compared with figures, as these should 
correspond in scale to the people in the picture. The most 
natural measure would be the door, which must be of a 
size to be used by the people. The lines of sill, eaves, and 
ridge-pole converge and would meet at a point on the 
Eye-level Line if extended enough, the slant of the lines de- 
pending on their relation to the Eye-level Line—that is to 
say, the height of the observer. 

Houses diminish in size with distance, like all other things, 
and the part of them that is below the Eye-level Line is 
always below it, no matter what the place. If for simplicity 
the house is the shape of a cube and the corners are drawn as 
verticals, it will be seen at once that the two nearer sides 
are longer than the farther ones, just as a man diminishes as 
he walks away. 

If the four tops of these corners are connected by lines, 
and the bottoms connected in the same way, a solid figure 
will result—transparent in this case, since the six faces of 
the cube are shown—the front of the house and the back of 
it at the same time, as well as the sides, bottom and top. 
The slanting of the horizontal lines follows, because the 
verticals of equal height which they must connect diminish 
in length as they recede, and since these verticals disappear 
in a point on the Eye-level Line, they must disappear at the 
same point, being attached to the top and bottom of the 
verticals. | 

Any parallel lines except those parallel to the Eye-level 


130 THE ART OF SEEING 


Line appear to converge because the distance between them 
seems to grow shorter as they recede. They will meet at a 
point on the Eye-level Line, though it may be outside of the 
picture. 

To sum up the facts that are necessary to give a regular 
mass the appearance of a solid, and place it at different 
distances from the eye, the verticals diminish in the way 
already studied. All horizontal lines except those parallel 
to the Eye-level Line will touch and stop at that line at some 
point, though it may be outside of the picture limits. If they 
are above the eye, they will slope down, and if below the eye, 
they will slope upward. Parallel lines except those parallel 
to the Eye-level Line converge and meet at a point on the 
Eye-level Line. All measurements, no matter what their 
direction, appear to diminish with distance. The Eye-level 
Line is always at right angles to the direction in which the 
observer is looking. 

The teachers should remember that these examples and 
the whole training in Every-Day Perspective are to be used 
to increase the children’s interest in their imaginative draw- 
ings, and so encourage them to continue to draw as a means 
of expression. A true graphic language in constant use, 
encouraging observation and accurate thought, is the goal 
to which our means are guiding the children, as an excellent 
foundation for their school work and the beginnings of a 
right understanding of the visual arts. 

Among the subjects that are sure to interest the children 
will be the interior of some room and the various pieces of 
furniture, as well as the people who live in it. The problem 
is no different from those already studied, but the nearness 
of all of the objects makes it more difficult to see the diminish- 
ing of the verticals. The Eye-level Line must always be the» 
guide, and every object, near or far, must be drawn with 
reference to it. 





15. Memory Drawings Made Before and After Training. 
By children of 3 and 4. 
131 


132 THE ART OF SEEING 


The corners of the room are verticals diminishing in evena 
short distance, as poles would if set up out-of-doors. The 
difficulty in seeing this comes from the fact that the observer 
is generally within the room, and the four corners cannot be 
seen at one time. To avoid that difficulty, imagine the walls 
to have vertical posts every few feet touching the floor and 
ceiling, and the rate of diminishing will give the floor and 
cornice lines. A table top below the Eye-level Line would 
show the same convergence of line as though it were laid 
out on the ground, and the legs would diminish in height 
after the manner of other verticals. 

. A perspective diagram would show these matters clearly, 
but much may be done by the simple laws that observation 
will give us. 


REPRESENTATION 3 
MEMORY DRAWING AND INFORMATION DRAWING 
i 


When primitive man drew his mastodon, he no doubt did 
it from memory. He drew from his mind. His effort was 
subjective. He made up his mastodon, and if the result was 
not satisfactory to him it was because there was not enough 
in his mind. It is our instinct to expect memory to supply 
the facts. 

A child does not make the first attempt to draw his toy 
motor from the object itself, but naturally depends on his 
memory of it. The early painters followed the same method, 
and it is only in later days that Art has become frankly 
objective, with the accompanying danger of confusing the 
means with the end. : 

The untrained impulse to represent the thought rather 


REPRESENTATION 133 


than imitate the object is sound, for, whatever nature may 
be, it is the thought of nature that is the subject of our pic- 
ture. Here individuality steps in, for our thought is a per- 
sonal interpretation of the common facts, important or 
otherwise as time will determine. 

A good drawing is not a close imitation of the subject but 
a selection of its salient points, arranged with reference to 
their relative importance. That is to say, any good drawing 
is a selection from the facts to express a special thought, and 
not a careful reproduction of everything seen. 

This selection is automatic if it is allowed so to be; in 
looking we see the point that we are interested in, and are 
oblivious of the facts that have no connection with it. To 
preserve this balance in a drawing is a matter not only of 
skill and judgment but also of definite intention. It is very 
easy to fall into the way of copying bit by bit and produce 
in the end an assortment of badly related facts that have 
no special significance.’ The skilled person always takes this 
tendency into account and in the end ‘‘pulls his drawing to- 
gether,’’ which means he assures himself that the result is 
a single impression. 

If it were possible to look once and draw what was seen 
in that one look, everything would be properly balanced. 
But to do that requires great knowledge and long training, 
and the practice of our day is not in the direction of such 
attainment. It is, however, a fact that we conceive our 
subjects in that way and struggle to retain the original im- 
pression through all of the work necessary for expression. 
It is too much to expect that the student should be able to 
discriminate between the important and the unimportant 
when both are plainly before him, unless we can find some 
natural guide that will help him in his choice and fix his 
standards from the beginning. 


134 THE ART OF SEEING 


Memory drawing seems to offer a natural way of accom- 
plishing this result, but it is necessary to use it with a clear 
understanding of its limitations as well as its advantages. 
When memory drawing is properly used it keeps to its sub- 
ject. We remember the point and vaguely recall other things 
associated with it, and if we were able to put down the 
objects in such an order we would have a drawing properly 
balanced as to fact and with the emphasis on the central 
thought. 

Memory drawing is a direct effort to express a single im- 
pression. If an object is drawn from memory its general 
characteristics are those which come to mind. We are not 
likely to remember small and unimportant details but 
rather the whole aspect of the object. 

This is in itself what we require of a good drawing. It 
is a quality which may be lost sight of in the progress of the 
work. We look for facts to elaborate a general impression 
and not for themselves alone, as would be the case if we were 
drawing without a conception of the whole. We start with 
unity because of our ignorance, small knowledge blots it 
out, and in attainment unity is recovered. 

The difference between a good and a bad drawing is not 
alone one of skill, but also of point of view. If a drawing 
were made part by part with absolute accuracy it would still 
fail in emphasis, which is the means used to express the 
thought, even though the facts were stated. With this in 
mind it is plain that direct drawing, important as a means of 
acquiring accuracy and hand training, is better balanced with 
Memory Drawing, which will establish from the start the 
final standards and so save time and useless effort. 

The practical application of Memory Drawing in teaching 
would come in its use as a balance to the direct drawing that 
must be done for the sake of gaining positive information as 


REPRESENTATION 135 


well as skill of hand. The limits of each must be carefully 
preserved in order to get full value. Memory gives us a 
general but elusive visual image. Direct observation gives 
a separate image with each look, which may have much or 
little to do with the subject as a whole. 

Technically, a memory drawing at its best would be 
general in character, based on previous knowledge of the 
type of the object in question, and with emphasis on the 
characteristics that had arrested the attention. It would be 
a well-balanced single impression, the details of no moment 
having escaped the mind altogether. 

The memory picture is not like a photographic print that 
may be examined piece by piece for detail of which one knows 
nothing, for, though the eyes may take in all that lies in front 
of them, it is necessary that the mind should receive the 
message. Attention seems to be the determining factor in 
what is clearly remembered, though an allowance must be 
made for subconscious records that blend with our conscious 
memories. Our memory picture is in its way timeless; it 
includes with the present fact a composite of all other similar 
facts within our experience. 

If a person unwise in machinery looks at an engine he 
sees a confused mass of parts, a few familiar forms in the 
way of wheels and rods, but on the whole so much mass 
occupying space. A vivid visual memory would enable him 
to see again only the most obvious and familiar parts, those 
which lay within his own experience; he would remember 
much more if he knew more about engines. 

A man learned in machinery, on the other hand, remember- 
ing the same engine, would have a vision based on the knowl- 
edge of the working laws, and his picture would be far more 
complete. In neither case would the image be like a photo- 
graphic print; it would be a series of facts selected for minor 


136 THE ART OF SEEING 


reasons by the ignorant man or for relative importance by 
the man of knowledge. 

Our general visual memories are vague images made up 
from experience and composite in their nature. When we 
remember any special thing clearly we find that for some 
reason we have given it our full attention and recall it as a 
variation from its type. We recall a face perhaps by the 
special shape or size of the nose, or an old pine tree by the 
twist that the wind has given it, always having as the basis 
of memory our general knowledge of the subject. This 
general knowledge is so much a mental factor as to interfere 
with actual sight. We are forced to acknowledge this fact 
when we are calied on to describe with accuracy any special 
place or object. 

The point demonstrates itself further when we attempt 
to make our first memory drawing. There is but a vague 
and changing image in the mind, far too indefinite to record 
in anything so.specific as line and color. We would say off- 
hand that we were perfectly familiar with the object in 
question, but soon we would find our general visual memory 
of little service. It is possible, however, instead of expecting 
a clear image that might be copied, deliberately to sharpen 
it by using our previous knowledge, bringing to the mental 
picture all of the information we may have on the subject. 
We then measure what we might expect to see with what we 
had seen before, and if there is a blank spot, fill it from our 
general knowledge. This effort to recall specifically with 
the aid of previous information will bring back the half- 
remembered and, where the new memory fails altogether, 
supply the missing part. 

The attempt to remember definitely brings the advantage 
of failure, for our obvious lack of knowledge shows us where 
it is necessary to observe. It is here that direct drawing 


REPRESENTATION 137 


takes its place, not as an end in itself, but as a means for 
acquiring information to be used for a specific object. 

The memories hold the point of special interest and the 
general impression. They are what we would seek to tell, if 
we were putting the matter into words as.a subject of interest 
to others; they are selected points to emphasize our own 
interest rather than topographical information. 

The difference between a direct drawing and one made 
from memory is more a matter of degree than of kind. All 
drawings are made from memory. When they are direct, the 
memory is a short one and generally of a small portion of the 
object. The difference is largely in mental effort and con- 
centration. If the information may be acquired at will in 
such quantities that little effort is necessary to remember, 
there being the confortable assurance that if anything goes 
wrong another look will set it right, the mind is not relay to 
assume full responsibility. 

The memory should be charged with what it can carry and 
its power increased with use. Memory drawing imposes the 
responsibility of looking with undivided attention, for all of 
the facts possible must be observed to retain the visual image. 
This habit of concentration is equally useful in the direct 
drawing, where the responsibility is not so great but the 
keenness of sight is as important. 

In a general way a good drawing might be taken as a fully- 
expressed memory, but it should be the memory of a master. 
If this seems an impossible standard to offer the student, it 
is to be said that the larger laws which the master follows 
are simple and not beyond the understanding of the common 
mind. He becomes the master by following the law. Memory, 
then, is used in the training as a framework on which to 
build. It forces observation and clearly points to the knowl- 
edge that must be acquired for the sake of expression. In 


138 THE ART OF SEEING 


addition, it forms a habit of orderly thought that is important 
in all other activities. 

The practical point to be brought out in looking at an 
object with the purpose of remembering it is not so much the 
attempt to retain an actual picture of it in the mind as to 
take careful note of its characteristics, depending on this 
information to reconstruct the image when the drawing is 
made. This will include all of the previous knowledge of it 
with that gained in the fresh examination, and there will bea 
true mental picture. 

A conscious memory image depends on several things. 
The basis of conscious sight is emotion—the recognition of 
some fact outside of the ego. An image has been passed from 
the eyes to the brain, which has recorded it. In Memory 
Drawing the image is the same as far as the brain is con- 
cerned, but stimulated by the will and not by the eyes. 
The mind, however, ascribes the emotion to the original 
source and a visual image results. This image is clear in 
proportion to the definiteness of the original impression, but 
in that impression allowance must be made for information 
supplied by the mind and not by the eyes. 

We look at an object and recognize it as a chair. We 
know a good deal about chairs in a general way, and our eyes 
have only given us a subject for thought. If we are especially 
keen, our eyes tell us how this chair is different from all other 
chairs we have ever seen; that is, we not only classify it, but 
we get in spite of our experience a fresh impression. The 
world at large never gets a fresh impression after its young 
curiosity is satisfied. An educated eye should always be 
young and curious. 

The process of remembering an object is as follows: The 
thought brings a general visual image, based on the class to 
which the object belongs and on the special object in ques- 











By a boy of 6. 


Memory Sequence I. 


16. 


139 


140 THE ART OF SEEING 


tion. If the mind turns to a consideration of the thing in 
detail, it is not likely that information will be gained, for 
the image eludes examination while retaining its general 
presence. The fact is, there has been no detailed thought 
record, and unless the subconscious mind can supply added 
information there is nothing further for the conscious mind 
to say. 

Experience, however, may be drawn on, and the visual 
image sharpened by making it conform to known laws. First, 
as existent, it is under conditions of light and shade. General 
knowledge would bring the image of a light side and a 
shadow side; special knowledge a thought of the minor 
variations in accord with the form. Visualizing the type,the 
memory is searched for anything unexpected that may have 
been noted which would characterize it as an individual of its 
sort. 

The effort to recall the appearance of an object should 
be a deliberate building up of all the known facts, since they 
were component parts of the original mental impression, plus 
the measure of the unexpected variations. From knowledge 
we say: ‘‘What must we have seen to have felt that way ?”’ 

In Memory Drawing it will be found that the first at- 
tempts show a vague mental image, largely because the 
attention has not been directed to important things. A 
directed attention carries a clear image. But directing the 
attention implies a specific mental effort prompted by a 
desire; therefore, interest is the basis of a clear image. 


II 


To be able to measure a child’s mental growth in some 
visible way is the reason for all tests and examinations. 
Through all the Means of the Course in Observation we have 


REPRESENTATION 141 


that measure, but most of all in Memory Drawing, where 
closeness of observation measures itself. The improvement 
in these drawings, when the proper balance of memory and 
information drawing has been kept, should be easily appar- 
ent. When the second Memory Drawing is less successful 
than the first it is because too many details have been seen 
and the main facts obscured. 

In practice, memory drawing must be carefully distin- 
guished from imaginative drawing. The latter, of course, is 
from memory also, but of such general and inaccurate 
character as to be useless in any training for accurate think- 
ing and seeing. Imaginative drawings, however, may be 
made the basis for a choice of things to be used in Memory 
Drawing. 

Children begin in the kindergarten to try to draw from 
their imagination animals of all kinds, trees, flowers, motors, 
trains. From these things should be chosen the material for 
their memory training. There is no reason why children 
should not be able to draw a horse in the kindergarten that 
would be considered creditable in the primary grades, if 
memory training is closely followed, and their attention is 
directed to real horses whenever possible after the toy 
horse has been drawn. A toy chicken or other animal, real 
flowers, fruits and vegetables in their season—anything 
directly connected with their interests that can be brought 
into the class room should be used. Photographic charts 
from nature especially adapted to this course may also be 
used. 

In illustration 15 is shown a graph of the passage between 
the symbolic stage and the realistic stage of small children’s 
drawings. Here the children, of three and four, are looking 
at form with directed thought for the first time. They see 
little, but the teachers are able to follow the passage from 


142 THE ART OF SEEING 


one stage to the next with as great visual certainty as if 
watching the longer or shorter process of different small 
crabs divesting themselves of their shells. 

The following sequence is always followed in the kinder- 
garten and primary as being the best balance between in- 
formation drawing and memory drawing for a ree in 
accuracy of observation: 

1. The object is shown to the children, and the teacher 
suggests various dramatic connections with it and their 
immediate interests. 

2. If time allows, all the children are permitted to 
handle the object. 

3. The object is hidden, and the children draw their 
memory of it quickly. 

4. The object is returned, and the children compare 
their drawings with it. 

5. The children draw a quick sketch directly of the 
object, the teacher remarking on its special character; 
““Tyoesn’t the camel look proud? Then think about how 
proud he is as you draw him.” 

6. The children look at the object again, 

7. It is removed for the second time, and they make 
their final memory sketch. 

The three sketches can be read clearly in sequence for 
the improvement in observation. With small children the 
second Memory Drawing almost invariably is the best, 
and both Memory Drawings are better than the informa- 
tion drawing, because in the information drawing too many 
details have been seen and the larger proportions lost. 

The purpose of the first sketch is to discover what each 
child really sees and can remember. The second direct 
sketch is not done in order to copy the object, but that the 
first impression and memories may be compared directly. 


REPRESENTATION 143 


with the facts as well as to gain information. The third 
sketch from memory gathers up all that has gone before of 
observation and memory, leaving an impression that en- 
dures, and usually shows a great step forward. 


Type Lesson—Memory Drawing 
KINDERGARTEN 


The teacher has prepared three large sheets of paper for 
the use of each child. The child’s name or initials are in 
one corner. On the first sheet of each set ‘‘M-1”’ (for First 
Memory) has been written near the child’s name; on the 
second sheet ‘‘I’’ (for Information); and on the third sheet 
‘‘M-2” (for Second Memory). With older children the 
three sheets can be placed on the desks or drawing-boards in 
advance, or with very young children, to prevent the chil- 
dren from scribbling on the whole set, they may be given 
out as needed. 

Only dark crayons should be used. Symmetrical objects 
should be avoided, as these have the least dramatic interest 
and require the greatest technical skill. The object must 
be large enough to be seen clearly, and free from confusing 
detail. It must have some direct connection with what the 
children have known and seen. 

It is spring and there are tulip bulbs in the classroom. 
The teacher has a large fine single tulip with two leaves 
springing from the stem. She brings it in, wrapped in tissue 
paper, the red of the flower showing through the paper. 
‘“What have I here?” “A flower.’’ ‘‘Guess what kind. 
Now I will show it to you and we will see how much we can 
remember of the way this flower grows.”’ 

Then the teacher tells in a few words how the petals and 
the leaves unfold, and in a small class passes the tulip that 


144 THE ART OF SEEING 


each child may look at it closely. The flower is then con- 
cealed and the children draw their memories. 

Later the flower is returned and one or two of these mem- 
ory drawings are shown to the class. ‘‘See how much Mary 
remembered. Let us look at the tulip here and draw it again, 
putting in the things we had forgotten.” 

Again one or two drawings are chosen and shown. *‘Tom 
saw the stem, the leaves, and the flower so well the other 
tulips would know their cousin if they saw Tom’s picture. 
He made a good picture. 

‘‘Now the tulip is going away again and we will draw 
the best one of all because we know so much about this 
spring flower and its half-open cup.” 

In the remaining time the teacher shows a few of the 
final drawings, always laying the emphasis on observation. 
‘“‘How much more Mary saw that second time! How well 
John remembered just how that special tulip looked!”’ 

With older children, and sometimes at the end of the 
kindergarten period, every: child looks at his whole record 
in the order in which the drawings were made. In any case, 
the teacher must examine each set as a graph of each 
child’s mind. Many things will be seen, and it will be 
possible to tell at a glance exactly where the children are 
in the passage from the symbolic to the realistic stage; also 
to a great extent how each child’s mind works. 

It often happens that a child who saw an oblong as a 
round will make the jump to a correctly seen form during 
the half hour given to this sequence of drawings, and the 
progress shown between the first and second Memory 
Drawings, as brought out by the accompanying illustra- 
tions, is often astonishing. 

The dramatizing of the object to be drawn is important. 
It is as well to count five before removing the object in 




















Ritson 


net tec 
Nee Re iene 








17. Memory Sequence II. By a girl of 8, 
145 


146 THE ART OF SEEING 


order to concentrate the interest. In drawing fruits or vege- 
tables choose one of special characteristics, and urge the 
children to remember how that particular object looked 
rather than to draw it from their thought of its general 
class. 

Type Lesson—Memory Drawing 


PRIMARY—RECONSTRUCTED IMAGES 


A lesson of the kind here described should be given, if 
possible, once a month. The change from the regular prac- 
tice of Memory Drawing will add to the interest and 
strengthen the children’s observation. Some object is 
chosen that will be familiar to a large proportion of the 
class—if possible, something the children have not only 
seen but handled. 

In the following lesson the teacher has a lobster shell 
and claws, and some pictures of lobsters which are not 
shown at first. The teacher begins the lesson by asking the 
class if they know how a lobster looks. The general answer 
will be ‘‘yes.”” The teacher then says: “‘We all think that 
we know how a lobster looks, but the only way to be sure 
that we are not fooling ourselves is to see whether we can 
draw one so that he could recognize himself.”’ 

In a class of older children the teacher will let them put 
down on paper what they remember at once without further 
talk or sharing of knowledge, as it makes a permanent im- 
pression when they discover for themselves how much less 
they remember than they think. With younger children 
the teacher asks questions and allows the class to profit 
from the knowledge of every one, always reminding the 
children that when visual memory stops they must fall 
back on general memory; that is, a lobster must have a 
body, a tail, a head, eyes, and claws, even if they can not 


REPRESENTATION 147 


remember how some of these features are shaped or how 
many claws there are. 

The teacher asks: ‘‘ How long is a lobster’s body compared 
to his front claw? How big are his eyes? How are they 
placed in his head? How many claws has he?” There 
will be many differences of opinion, and after a few minutes, 
no matter how little the class can remember clearly, they 
have recalled the chief characteristics of the lobster, and 
they must try to put them on paper. 

When the children have made a record of their memories, 
the object itself (or a picture of it) is shown and the chil- 
dren allowed, if possible, to handle it. There will always be 
great excitement and interest as the children are compelled 
to realize through their own experience how weak were 
their powers of observation. 

The teacher then asks whether the lobster would recog- 
nize himself in any of the drawings. Or whether one of the 
class travelling in a foreign country and wanting lobster for 
dinner would be likely to get it if he showed his drawing to 
the waiter. The amusement and surprise caused by dis- 
covering their inaccurate memories will make all criticisms 
quite impersonal. The boys especially will want to know 
more and to draw a lobster that can be recognized. 

The lobster or other object should then be removed. 
The second drawing should give the major proportions and 
chief characteristics, even if the relation is far from correct. 

When time allows, the procedure should be as follows: 

1. Choose object and discuss before drawing, or draw 
directly from memory. 

2. Put on paper whatever characteristics are remem- 
bered. 

3. Observe object or picture of object for the first time. 

4. Withdraw object. 


148 THE ART OF SEEING 


First memory drawing after object has been seen. 
Bring back object and compare with drawings. 
Leave object and draw direct (quick sketch). 
Remove object and make final drawing from memory 
after weak points have been discussed. 

When the children use special animals repeatedly in their 
imaginative drawings—rabbits, chickens, horses, reindeer, 
etc.—the teacher should use these subjects with this con- 
structive memory method for developing their observation, 
rather than give them an animal to copy. The impression 
through the memory drawing will be permanent, the im- 
provement will be constant. By the copy method the process 
must be repeated again and again, and the result will be 
small because the attention is not being actually aroused, 
and the observation is necessarily superficial. If a teacher 
thinks that half an hour is too much time to give to mem- 
ory drawing, he should consider the permanent results ob- 
tained and the time saved. It is impossible for children to 
remain inert in ordinary conditions when this method is 
used. Many wasted hours, in which children repeat their 
errors of thought and observation for months or even 
years, are avoided and both teacher and pupil are spared 
exhaustion and discouragement. 

Natural objects must never be put before the children 
to draw unless they can be made intrinsically interesting 
to them by a story or some demonstration of their origin. 


om ON Ul 


REPRESENTATION 4 
MODELLING 


When considering the different means of communication 
and self-expression at man’s disposal, it would seem that 
modelling must have had an early place. 


REPRESENTATION 149 


In our first experiences the recognition of mass follows 
that of light, and form is the characteristic of mass. 

Children naturally use mass to externalize an idea, as we 
have already said. A block to them is a man, an engine, a 
boat, or whatever else fits the story they have in mind, and 
the actual form has little to do with the case. Mass without 
resemblance, however, does not long satisfy, and the im- 
pulse comes to shape it and give it special characteristics. 
This happened when the first sculptor made a man of his 
lump of-clay and found that other people could see a man 
in it too. It is the chief occupation of human beings to 
change mass to suit fancy or convenience and to move it 
from place to place. 

Modelling is an essentially direct form of expression. It 
has its natural limitations, because color, distance, and all 
of the subtle suggestions of place and atmospheric condi- 
tions are outside of its province. It is the medium for the 
tangible with whatever may be suggested through such a 
medium. 

In drawing, mass must be suggested, but in clay work, 
dealing with the tangible, the mass itself is used. The 
painter suggests modelling and feels the actual contour in 
the surfaces he represents. 

For the children’s work the training in modelling would 
be practically the same as in drawing, and the two, modelling 
and drawing, should be used together. The vagueness of 
the children’s ideas in regard to form is immediately ap- 
parent as soon as they shape a mass. The mass has to be 
seen from all sides, and they are forced to observe in order 
to add to their information. There is no unseen other side. 
It is not so much a question of ‘‘what does it seem to be?”’ 
as ‘‘what isit’?’’ Asin drawing, the objects modelled should 
be familiar ones and such as are available for study. 


150 THE ART OF SEEING 


The most available objects to begin with would be fruit, 
an egg, or some other simple form, but only a short time 
should be spent on such things, as they have too few defi- 
nite characteristics. 

The figures modelled will naturally be crude, but they will 
be as expressive as the action figures in the drawing, and 
will teach the same valuable lesson. Proportion gives the 
physical fact; action tells the story; and observation sup- 
plies the knowledge. 

The subject of modelling for children has been so well de- 
veloped by Walter Sargent in a pamphlet entitled Modeling 
in the Public Schools that it seemed unnecessary to cover 
the subject again. The present chapter is included merely 
because of the connection with drawing. 


Type Lesson for the Teaching of Modelling 
PRIMARY GRADES 


“Here is a bronze elephant modelled by a great sculptor 
and therefore it seems alive. We will put him on the table 
where you may all come to touch him and examine him. 
(Several children may be touching him at once.) 

“Shut your eyes when you put your hand on him. 

“Can you guess what part of him you are touching? 

“Are his legs long compared with his bulk? 

“Do you think his trunk is longer than his legs ? 

“Shall we use a large or a small lump of clay for his 
head ° 

“What is the shape of his ears? Of what do they remind 
you ? 

“Ts he about to run, or has he been eating peanuts and 
feels lazy ?”’ 


REPRESENTATION 151 


After the children have been given time to feel the ele- 
phant and answer a few questions, the animal is put out 
of sight and the children model from memory. The sub- 
ject’s chief characteristics should be remembered, although 
the proportions may not be good. 

When the children say that they cannot remember a 
salient characteristic, the teacher should tell them to use 
their knowledge of what an elephant must have in order to 
be distinguished from every other four-footed animal. 

The sketch produced can only give the rough proportions 
of the model. When the time allowed is up, the elephant 
should be brought back:and the following type of questions 
asked: 

“‘Is the body of your elephant large enough to carry a 
platform with people on it on his back ?”’ 

“Could your elephant run with such thin legs and carry 
such a heavy body, not to speak of logs or baggage ?”’ 

The elephant should again be removed, and the children - 
should correct from memory the action and proportion of 
their sketches in clay. 

The sketches which show the best action and proportion 
should be set aside, that the children may go farther in de- 
tail directly from the model. 

After the elephant has been modelled in this sequence he 
should also be drawn from memory. 

It will be found that this exercise in modelling reinforces 
memory drawing. Children who have the benefit of model- 
ling in connection with drawing improve more rapidly in 
observation and technic than do others. 


18. 


Drawing in Light and Shade. 
152 





By a girl of 14, 





REPRESENTATION 153 


REPRESENTATION 5 


LIGHT AND SHADE 


Sight is dependent on a certain class of waves in the 
ether which we know as light. At any point between the 
limits of the light waves the normal person gets the sensa- 
tion of light, but the sensation varies with the place between 
the limits, and light at any special point we know as color. 
The simultaneous sensation of all the light waves is white. 
Beyond the limits of light in either direction we call black, 
which is a negation as far as light is concerned, but may 

have other physical relations to us. When there is no light 
we are as blind as the sightless person, for neither in his 
case nor in ours has a light record been made on the 
brain. 

As light is a sensation, there must be variation in the in- 
dividual perception of it. We are not endowed alike with 
the means of receiving it. Sight is inexact for mental rea- 
sons, but there are physical reasons also why it would be 
difficult to find agreement on any special object seen. 

We meet bulk with our own bulk; it would be impossible 
for us to pass through an opposing solid, no matter if it were 
outside of our perception altogether; it would still be there 
to us and to all others, if only as an obstruction. But light 
is not of ourselves. It comes to us through the inter-atomic 
spaces. It is unprovable except by its results, and could 
be denied altogether by one unconsciously insensitive. If 
we deny bulk we deny our own existence. Sight, how- 
ever, is a personal sensation, and in comparing results an 
allowance always must be made for the individual. 

In the course of our general experience we associate de- 
gree of light with the shape of objects. We know a thing to 


154 THE ART OF SEEING 


be solid because it is unevenly lighted, and our visual knowl- 
edge of mass is in a general way based on this single fact. 
Where we see no shadow we naturally assume a flat surface, 
and the eyes give us no means of proving it otherwise. 

Much of our knowledge of the ways of light is subcon- 
scious, and it is on this account that, when we begin to draw 
in light and shade, there are so many difficulties. We are 
accustomed to think of light and dark as a general condition 
and do not realize that each solid form shows all of the vari- 
ations of light and dark as its surfaces incline more or less 
to the source of illumination. We say a thing looks solid, 
but we might not be able to give at once a reason for the 
opinion. The fact is too common ever to have been worth a 
thought. There are many other facts within general ex- 
perience never thought of, but which are of continual service 
to us in drawing. 

As light fades less form can be seen, so that in the shadow 
we are unable to distinguish as much detail as in the light. 
The better the light the more we can see, as all will admit. 
Color, also being light, would follow in the same way. Any 
color in the shadow would be less positive than it would be 
in the light. These two facts must come within the experi- 
ence of every one and make part of the visual impression of 
shadow. To formulate it we would say: ‘‘Shadow is lack of 
light with the consequent loss of color and form.” 

To us shadow is partial blindness, for it is diminished sen- 
sation. We do not consciously consider the effect of shadow; 
we take the matter for granted. It is true nevertheless that 
we associate the results with the cause, and when they are 
presented in a picture we know that shadow is expressed. It 
is even possible to describe shadow without dark by the ob- 
literation of detail and color, for the lack of detail and color 
is immediately ascribed to darkness itself, and we see 


REPRESENTATION 155 


shadow that is only implied. The value of the knowledge 
of general sight habits lies in the fact that through them 
we may express our thought in terms of actual experience. 

The property of light that makes it possible for us to 
judge the form of objects is its inability to travel in any 
but a straight line. Given a single source, the light falls on 
any surface in proportion to the angle it makes with the di- 
rection of the light. If light waves could travel in varying 
curves we would live among uncertain forms and many 
catastrophes. A world of bent light would be visual chaos, 
each object following its erratic way isolated and unre- 
lated to all others. A drawing made without following the 
laws of light tells nothing of solid form or bulk. 

It is natural in the first drawings that are made to rep- 
resent the object in outline. This is because we have the 
mass itself in mind as a unit, and the thought has no refer- 
ence to the way it may appear as seen in light or its relation 
to its surroundings. We draw a boundary line to separate 
the object from all others, giving one fact only of the sev- 
eral necessary to complete description. 

The passage from outline to light and shade involves an 
enlarged outlook. An object is no longer sufficient in itself, 
but its relation to others must be considered, and it is to be 
described in terms of the light it interrupts. Vague mental 
images no longer serve, and close observation is required to 
follow the simple laws of light through the complicated re- 
sults. What we see never appears in outline except in the 
case of some object silhouetted against the light. Contours 
merge in shadow, or some light place is so like what is be- 
hind it that the point of separation is scarcely visible. We 
never see all that we know must be there. Our knowledge 
of fact might well cause us to lose the path of the law. 

For this reason some direct drawing in light and shade is 


156 THE ART OF SEEING 


necessary before the memory can be trusted to carry the 
most important facts. The difference between our general 
memory of an object and the visual memory of it is a 
definite one. The general memory carries with it knowledge 
we have gained through all our senses at various times, and 
is not confined to the experience of the eyes alone on one 
special occasion. A visual memory has to be separated from 
all of these influences, as it is not so much a question of the 
objects themselves as of what is seen of them. The painters 
call this an ‘‘effect,”’ and by the word pay tribute to the 
cause. 

It will be found that whenever a cause is understood the 
eye is better able to judge the effect. If we think of light 
itself as it is modified by the shape and position of the ob- 
jects on which it falls, we see those objects related to each 
other consistently with the time and the place. Without 
some such guiding thought absolute accuracy in imitation 
would be necessary to reach any degree of accuracy in the 
result, and the difficulties would multiply with the number 
of objects concerned. 

In the study of light and shade our subject should be 
light expressed by the way objects appear under its influence. 
We put ourselves in the place of light as we look. We speak 
loosely of seeing an object, but in reality our sensation is 
due to the light that object is able to reflect; its actual exist- 
ence would be proved only by touch. Even the sensation of 
light does not always have an objective cause; it may come 
from some mental reaction. We all know that a blow on 
the eyes will give us a flash of light unconnected with an 
external source. 

In teaching light and shade with reference to cause it is 
necessary to remember one fact only: that light must travel 
in a straight line. However light or dark a surface may ap- 


REPRESENTATION 157 


pear depends on its inclination to the light. This is true of a 
colored surface as well as of a white one, for color means 
that only part of the original white light is reflected at any 
time, and even that fraction varies with the inclination of 
the surface. 

The usual term for the varying degrees of illumination 
is ‘‘value.’’ It defines the quantity of white light compared 
to the source. We say commonly that a surface is dark or 
light. The word “‘value’’ is more accurate. It implies a 
balance and is also a standard to which color may be reduced 
for the purpose of comparison. 

As our world is a colored one, some common term for the 
various colors must be found, and we speak of a dark red 
as having a low value, meaning to say that its equivalent 
in white light would be low in the scale of light and would 
be a dark neutral gray. Like all technical terms, the word 
‘“‘value’’ is only a convenient classification. When we real- 
ize that a wrong value misrepresents the surface it is intended 
to describe by giving it light to which it could not be en- 
titled and as a result distorts the object, it is easy to see the 
importance of any general thought that will aid our judg- 
ment. 

The ordinary technical methods in drawing reverse the 
thought of light, for we work with black on white, and it is 
natural to think of shadow without reference to its cause. 
There must be error even in skilled hands, but the errors 
are more likely to balance each other if the tones in our 
drawings are compared with a common measure. The 
thought of light as the source gives this measure, and some 
degree of unity of illumination can be given, even in the 
work of beginners. 

The action of light should be carefully explained to the 
pupils and should be insisted upon until it becomes instinc- 


158 THE ART OF SEEING 


tive for them to think first of light as the cause when they 
look at their objects in light and shade. They are acquir- 
ing a point of view rather than a method, and it is one they 
can share with the masters of technic. 


PARTEIV 


You should often amuse yourself, when you take a walk for recre- 
ation, in watching and taking notes of the attitudes and actions of 
men as they talk and dispute, or laugh or come to blows one with 
another. Both their actions and those of the bystanders who either 
intervene or stand looking on at these things; noting these down with 
rapid strokes... in a little pocket-book, which you ought always to 
carry with you. And let this be of tinted paper, so that it may not 
be rubbed out: but you should change the old for a new one, for 
these are not things to be rubbed out but preserved with the utmost 


diligence. .. . Leonardo da Vinci. 





SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHERS 


INTERMEDIATE GRADES 


In the Kindergarten and Primary Grades the children 
still keep their natural instinct for graphic expression. If 
the flow is not checked prematurely they will always con- 
tribute to any objective experience, a wealth of material 
from their own thought. That is one of the reasons why 
adults find the drawings of small children amusing and in- 
teresting, no matter how defective the presentation may be. 
In fact, we are apt to mistake the latter for the spirit and 
place the quality we enjoy in the work of children and primi- 
tive peoples in their faulty means of expression, rather than 
in the fresh, underived thought and vision where in both 
cases the real values lie. 

We see that the children lose much of this freshness of 
thought as they leave the primary grades, and their graphic 
expression becomes more true to objective fact. The care- 
less and natural conclusion is that a better acquaintance 
with the objective world is drying up the springs of original 
thought and fancy. Therefore teachers, moving in a little- 
known field, dread to find better seeing in the children’s 
work, except in a mechanical sense. They allow the chil- 
dren to repeat, year after year, bad habits formed in early 
nursery days, until the children’s own logical discontent 
with what they produce causes them to drop the further 
attempt to use a graphic language in a world where the use 
of words, written and spoken, becomes insistently neces- 
sary, both at home and in school. 


When the teacher has a better understanding of the sub- 
161 


162 THE ART OF SEEING 


ject it will be possible to preserve the freshness of the chil- 
dren’s thought. He will allow it to come from their own 
lives and interests, and cease to impose adult requirements 
and standards. Every fresh mental and visual adventure 
expressed through drawing will then enrich their whole 
experience. 

To teach a child to see better and give him the means for 
checking up the integrity of what he sees is not to kill im- 
pulse or imagination. If we furnish him with a conven- 
tional or mechanical way of making his work look better, 
then indeed do we close his mind and block his impulse to 
further experiment. 

Our educational theories are at last on a psychological 
basis, and it can be proved in any psychological laboratory 
—what the teacher of genius has known in every age—that 
the teacher should lead the pupil to self education through 
suggestions rather than strive for results by imposing meth- 
ods. That theory is sound, but in our practice as yet we 
too often mistake impulse for interest, and follow the chil- 
dren’s impulses instead of leading their interest through in- 
telligent suggestions. The difficulty seems to lie in defini- 
tions. An impulse may be good or bad. It feeds a steady 
interest only when it is trained and controlled. To follow 
children’s impulses in the fear of losing a basic motive 
power is, in the end, to lose the children’s genuine interest 
and personal respect. It is the same in mature life. The 
serious worker in any art or profession rejects impulse and 
follows his chosen interest, day by day, through any drudg- 
ery. Only the amateur waits for inspiration. 

The teacher who gives the Course in Observation to 
pupils of any age must keep to the keynote of the matter. 
He is teaching people how to see and how to think about 
what they see directly and clearly. The results must always 





19. Figures in Few Lines, Passing from Action Figures to Action Lines. 


By children of 14. 


163 


164 THE ART OF SEEING 


be measured by the mental cause, and each pupil led to 
measure himself by a recognition of his own difficulties in 
the light of his improvement. For this reason single good 
drawings should rarely be exhibited; rather, a sequence of 
drawings which show the greatest advance made by one 
pupil, or a series demonstrating the advance in quality of 
thought and performance of the class. 

The tendency in the past has been to pick out the chil- 
dren of greatest graphic facility and glorify that facility 
until the distance between their performance and that of 
the other children became so evident as to completely dis- 
courage the others. It is often at this place that the sense 
of separation begins between the public and the artist, for 
it is quite logical to draw the conclusion that you can never 
learn a language if it is necessary to be born with a specially 
made tongue to speak it, or with eyes of a particular kind to 
read its text. 

Children who have been trained through a Course in 
Observation in the lower grades, the drawing duly co- 
ordinated with their other school work, should enter the in- 
termediate grades with their graphic powers developed to 
the same point as their ability to use the written word. 
Their results in graphic expression should be looked at by 
the teachers as revealing the history of their mental growth. 
When the drawings are used in connection with tests 
usually given in the schools it should be possible to study 
a series of drawings as if reading psychological charts, and 
to decide what needs to be supplied in each child’s develop- 
ment. 

If intermediate grade children have not had a Course 
in Observation the Course should be introduced according 
to the ‘‘abnormal schedule”’ on page 200. If the teach- 
er’s presentation is dramatic and interesting, the children 


INTERMEDIATE GRADES 165 


will find the Course no less attractive than any other form 
of drawing they might do in the same time, and will improve 
rapidly when the new point of view has been established. 
There will be a period for each child equivalent to that gone 
through by an adult taking the Course, when, all mechanical 
and exterior ways of teaching and drawing being removed, 
he must get back to his own standing in the power to observe 
and record his observation. 

The first work done after this transition, as with adults 
under similar conditions, will be highly unsatisfactory to the 
child’s pride. It will not look as ordered as his former draw- 
ings, and the instinct will be strong to repeat the earlier con- 
ventions instead of looking for himself. The teacher’s pride 
will suffer also, for all superficially tidy work must be aban- 
doned that a more fundamental order be established. If 
the teacher has a standard for the new order and is willing 
to go through the minor inconveniences of keeping and 
filing all the drawings and rejecting the use of flat copies, 
erasures, and much old material he will find gain for every 
study in the grade. The children’s power for independent 
thought and choice may then grow from roots which the 
changes and chances of adolescence will feed, for the Means 
in the Course are so planned that comparative failure—a 
necessary part of independent experiment—may be as fruit- 
ful as success. 

Drawing teachers occasionally choose one Means from 
those in the Course as it may fit their own needs. While 
the Means may be used with the greatest elasticity when 
once the principles are understood, all of them together are 
necessary for the successful application of the principles. 
Any practice isolated from the rest of the Course would 
bring unbalanced and unsatisfactory results. 

When, for lack of time, some of the means must be tem- 


166 THE ART OF SEEING 


porarily dropped those retained should best fit the chil- 
dren’s needs at the time and preserve continuity for the 
Course. Unless the principles are continually kept in mind 
by the teacher no conscientious or arbitrary carrying out 
of the Means will be sufficient to confirm habits of clear 
thinking and seeing in the children. 

In most cases all work in drawing and painting should be 
carried out in direct connection with school work and play. 
The means should never be emphasized as ends. The Line 
Stories must not be insisted upon when their purpose has 
been fulfilled; Action Figures from the start are used in il- 
lustration and for motion, never for themselves; the objects 
used for Memory Drawing must be interesting to the chil- 
dren and have connection with their other work. 

It is continually stated by teachers that children draw 
from “‘memory,” the word being applied to all drawing 
done away from the object and generally used to indicate 
the vaguely associated and inaccurate memories of any draw- 
ing from imagination. It must therefore be repeated and 
emphasized that in training for accuracy of memory and 
observation it should be possible to verify the memory 
drawing directly and immediately. If no comparison is 
made the effort is not productive. 

When the Course in Observation is introduced into the 
secondary grades the supervisors will sometimes be met 
with the information that the class ‘‘does not like” Line 
stories, Action Figures, or even Memory Drawing. The 
reasons why a teacher expresses himself in this way are be- 
cause he has not overcome his preconceived ideas or con- 
trolled his mental habits enough to gain the new point of 
view; therefore, he has not given it to the children. He 
has not remembered that the children also have the same 
difficulties in getting away from old habits, and therefore 


INTERMEDIATE GRADES 167 


cannot be hurried or forced. They can only be led through 
human interest to the substitution of a new idea for an old 
one. As the new idea gains their attention and they find 
that it works in the living problems with which their minds 
’ are filled, it will be used. 

The teaching of light and shade, from the point of view 
of cause, should never be neglected in the intermediate 
grades. The gain in the children’s outlook from this teach- 
ing is too valuable an ingredient in their training to be 
missed. 


APPLICATION OF MEANS 


To INTERMEDIATE GRADES 


The figure of a spiral may serve to indicate how the 
various means used in mental training through drawing and 
painting for strengthening memory and judgment should 
be applied through the school grades and to adults of any age. 
As the Means have a human basis, they are not limited by 
age or special circumstance, and the problem for the teacher 
is one of balance and adjustment to the conditions involved. 

If the children have had a mental training through 
drawing and painting in the kindergarten and primary 
grades, the Means in the intermediate grades should have 
so close a connection with all visual and mental subjects in 
school and at home that they are resorted to as separate 
training only for special difficulties that may arise for the 
individual or the class. The children’s actual work, there- 
fore, would be in all graphic expression connected with and 
illustrating history, English, geography, nature study, school 
games and plays, school magazines, posters, and note-books, 
school and home work for holidays, records of travel, or visits 
to museums, to zoos, theatres, and moving pictures, the 





20. Memory Drawing of Live Animals. By a girl of 14. 
168 





21. Altered Poses, Drawn from Memory. By a girl of 16. 
169 


170 THE ART OF SEEING 


circus, industrial plants, etc., and in such imaginative 
associations as are fed from all these sources. 

The difficulty of finding time for mental training of this 
order in a crowded curriculum may be overcome if the 
teacher responsible for a Course in Observation plans the 
children’s work in the closest co-ordination with all these 
other studies and timely interests. A definite plan should be 
worked out, the various teachers involved being consulted 
as to how the use of their material in the Course in Observa- 
tion would increase the pupils’ grasp of that particular sub- 
ject, with the proviso that there be always a place for the 
unexpected happening which might fill the public mind and 
interest the children. | | 

To use this wealth of material successfully there must be 
co-operation between the teachers and a time set for criticis- 
ing the drawings not only from the point of view of good 
presentation of subject, but from the point of view of gain 
in observation as shown through the drawings. _ 

In schools where drawing is used merely to check up peda- 
gogic detail in any subject without the knowledge of its 
larger possibilities, much waste of time could be avoided. It 
is evident that if a child draws constantly in history and 
English, and the teacher’s only requirement is to confirm a 
memory of the matter in hand, the time spent during the 
week in careless drawing will be greater than that allowed 
for a class in observation drawing. In these conditions it is 
obviously impossible for a pupil to make art advance in 
mental training, or for a teaching in cause and effect to 
have any result. The waste effort is great on the part of 
all the teachers and the pupils. 

Until the teacher of any subject begins to look at drawings 
in the light of a mental test, the only way for the supervisor 
of the Course in Observation to avoid a conflict of motives 


INTERMEDIATE GRADES 171 


is to see all drawings done in the school once a week or as 
often as possible, and to advise the various teachers as to 
the pupils’ fundamental needs in observation and how these 
needs may be met. 

It is generally considered that Music and Drawing or 
Painting are cultural subjects in themselves, and they are 
regarded as external symbols. The conditions of actual men- 
tal training are forgotten. Careless expression in any of the 
arts without attention or standards fixes bad mental habits 
through mere external repetition. When the aim in the 
teaching is that the pupils may have an objective standard 
for the measure of their own thought, then only do the arts 
take their place in the foundation of education rather than 
in an external finish. 

In the intermediate grades as the pupils’ emotional and 
intellectual needs become greater, nothing destroys mental 
initiative and independence, and emotional balance, more 
completely than superficial standards of training in the arts. 
Despite the proved psychological knowledge of these facts, 
we neglect the arts as a source of mental training in the 
higher grades even when we have made an effort to carry 
out such training in the primary. When the Course in 
Observation is adequately carried out in the intermediate 
grades, the results in development of imagination and mem- 
ory should be even richer than in the primary because of the 
greater abundance of material and the pupils’ increased 
strength of attention. 

If drawing has been treated as a natural graphic language 
and not as an art, the pupils will not be self-conscious in its 
use. But it is of the greatest importance that the material 
used for illustration and for memory training be in direct 
line with the every-day occupations and interests of the 
pupils. When the project method is employed, drawing, 


172 THE ART OF SEEING 


painting, and modelling should form a major part of the 
training and no mechanical means should be resorted to, 
unless mechanical accuracy is needed to carry out a definite 
plan. 

For the intermediate grades, in ordinary conditions, each 
one of the Means should be emphasized according to the 
experience of the supervisor or the grade teacher, the object 
being to keep continuity in mind and to apply the principles 
where they will give the most training and fill the greatest 
need. : 

Line Stories. —When the line is weak and tentative, or 
where there is the use of many small strokes in drawing, the 
teacher must introduce this exercise in the intermediate 
grades as a surprise, with a story that has dramatic interest 
and will suggest other stories of local happenings to the 
pupils. 

Measure should be used almost as a game in eye and mind 
accuracy, and should be introduced unexpectedly in connec- 
tion with some work where such accuracy is specially needed. 

Exercise in Vertical and Horizontal.—If the pupils are care- 
less in drawing Vertical and Horizontal lines the proving with 
the plumb line and bottle level should be resorted to at 
once. 

Action Figures.—If the practice in the use of these figures 
has been understood by the teacher, most of the pupils, 
under normal conditions, in the intermediate grades will be 
able to draw a figure in good proportion with doubled 
lines and with no loss in action. Therefore, they will be 
observing how to clothe their figures in the study of the 
costumes of the different periods in connection with their 
work in English and history. Those of the class who keep 
the action while studying how the clothes hang under 
different conditions will soon be able to begin to draw figures 


INTERMEDIATE GRADES 173 


’ 


with “‘action lines,’’ and without drawing the action figure 
first. For this transition there must be memory and informa- 
tion drawing, the pupils posing for each other; also, short 
repeated actions, such as drawing down a shade, opening a 
door, picking up something from the floor, dusting a shelf, 
used according to the following practice. 

Expressing Action 1n a Few Lines.—This practice should 
be treated much as a game, the effort being to see how 
directly the story of the particular action can be told in as 
few lines as possible. After five minutes the drawings that 
tell the action in five lines, seven lines, etc., should be put 
on the screen, and the teacher should point out how a single 
line suggesting the poise of the head or body does more 
to tell the story of action than would any number of details 
without that indication of the poise. If the grade teacher has 
not been trained in the Course in Observation, this lesson 
can still be given with help from the supervisor. The children 
should be asked to try this exercise at home with their pets 
as models—cats, dogs, birds—and to bring pictures of figures 
and animals in action to school from which to draw the 
action lines from memory. 

These exercises will enable the children through the action 
lines and increased observation to draw figures in action as 
would any illustrator, but if the figures are stiff and the 
pupils show in their drawings that they no longer have in 
their minds the thought of the action in the figure under- 
neath the clothes, a return must be made at once to the 
clothed action figure, at least for a short time. 

Every-Day Perspective.—Under normal conditions, when 
Every-Day Perspective has been taught in the primary 
classes, it should be necessary to return to special problems 
in perspective only in cases where a class fails to have the 
position of the observer in mind when drawing and produces 


174 THE ART OF SEEING 


drawings without order. Then single-line action figures 
should be used, to save time, and a strict accounting ac- 
cording to conditions required of the pupil. 

Composition (Design).—The various ways by which the 
story (whether as an illustration or a surface to be covered) 
can be told through psychological values should be kept in 
mind and pointed out by the teacher whenever possible, and 
in connection with every piece of graphic work done by the 
pupils in the intermediate grades. As by this time the basic 
principles should be well known to both pupils and teacher, 
this can be done when planning work in all the Means, as 
well as in design as such (posters, note-books, handicrafts, 
etc.). 

When possible, all work in design should be in direct 
connection with school and home needs—costumes, scenes, 
utensils, school plays and pageants, school use and decora- 
tion, the pupils’ own seasonable clothes, presents for holi- 
days, planning for gardens, summer work. The teaching 
should come through the co-ordination of all these timely 
and human needs and events, rather than through any ar- 
bitrary programme of increasingly elaborate formal de- 
sign. The pupils will find it necessary to observe and dis- 
cover much for themselves in connection with such needs, 
and the teacher’s part will be to suggest and plan visits 
to museums of natural history or art, or to places where 
houses, trees, or other conditions may be found, as required 
for the special problem in hand. 

It must be emphasized again that the only way in modern 
education by which time can be saved is by a direct return 
to the observation and practice of a few basic principles in 
connection with personal needs and interests. If teachers 
should ask where they are to find time for such practice, 
we answer that such co-ordination as is here suggested 


INTERMEDIATE GRADES 175 


covers the necessary mental training and the material of all 
school subjects. Waste is avoided and more certain results 
obtained than if each teacher were competing for time with 
the teachers of all other subjects, as is still too often the 
case. 

A Course in Observation can be so directly co-ordinated 
with English, history, natural history, and geography that 
the gain in each of these subjects will be equally great dur- 
ing the same period, and a foundation will have been estab- 
lished for vigor and independence of thought. 

Color.—Mental training through the study of color rela- 
tions is as important in observation through painting as is 
a training in the perception and memory of form in draw- 
ing. But form must come first, as it does in common ex- 
perience. Life would be possible in a colorless world and 
equally so to one who had lost his sense of taste. In both 
cases the flavor, however, would be absent. 

In actual work with drawing and painting, drawing must 
be the first choice if there is to be a choice, but color should 
be used whenever circumstances permit in the intermediate 
grades. 

Normally the few facts that should be known about color 
will have been part of the training in design in the kinder- 
garten and the primary classes; therefore pupils in the in- 
termediate grades will be familiar with these basic facts 
and with the thought of color relations. Much can be done 
with crayons and water-color to emphasize color relations. 

When the school has no studio, the use of oil as a medium 
in the intermediate grades becomes impossible, and a direct 
training in painting through the color-relation panel must be 
postponed to the high school; but opportunity for the use of 
color in illustration, memory drawing, posters, scenery, 
costumes, etc., will offer itself in the school activities on 


176 THE ART OF SEEING 


every hand. The supervisor’s programme should be so ar- 
ranged that every child uses color in some activity during 
the school year. 

The opportunity to add color to their drawings may come 
as a natural reward to those pupils whose thought about 
form has been of so good a quality that there is gain in time. 
The answer to the question, ‘“May I color my drawings ?”’ 
may be, ‘‘Your story is consistent; we will see how you can 
tell it better by adding color.” 

Color may be used by drawing directly with crayon and 
brush, the thought of color relations and the effect of one 
color on another being constantly emphasized. The teacher 
should not impose on the pupils any theory or taste of his 
own as to color harmonies. Pupils must make their own 
choices and discoveries in a world where personal selection 
finally rules. 

Memory Drawing.—The balance of Memory and Informa- 
tion Drawing is so direct a means by which the teacher can 
measure the mental progress of the pupils that it should not 
be crowded out of the curriculum. The co-ordination al- 
ready indicated of memory drawing with other stories should 
be according to pedagogic necessity, and in order to secure 
accurate and vivid images. 

For example in English, animals and all objects con- 
nected with stories to be illustrated; in history, armor, fur- 
niture, costume; in nature study, objects of all kinds from 
nature or natural history museums, when drawn by the 
memory sequence, will be remembered. 

A teacher anxious that her pupils should recall the flags 
of different countries tries the methods of tracing and 
copying without success. When the flags are drawn in the 
memory sequence they will not be forgotten. 

The practice of the three quick drawings must be con- 


INTERMEDIATE GRADES 5 Wire 


tinued through the intermediate grades and the sequences 
studied. There will be varieties of results and special needs. 
In large classes it is not possible to give time and close at- 
tention to each pupil, but in smaller classes when both 
memory drawings are better than the information draw- 
ings, several information drawings should be made to every 
memory drawing. When the information drawing is always 
better than the memory, the proportion of the memory 
drawings should be increased. 

At least twice in the school term the whole period should 
be given to a more detailed information drawing that the 
pupils’ needs may be also checked in this way. 

Modelling.—To use the same objects that are drawn ac- 

cording to the memory and information sequence as sub- 
jects for modelling is a most valuable practice. They should 
be co-ordinated with the practice in design when the objects 
chosen lend themselves to decoration. 
_ Light and Shade.—The difficulties of ‘‘shading”’ a drawing 
have been supposed to be so great that any drawing rend- 
ered in light and shade was considered too difficult for 
pupils in the intermediate grades. As a precedent we have 
the fact that small children and primitive peoples have no 
light and shade in their drawings, and probably accept the 
thought of light as the reason by which they see, rather 
than as something seen. 

A training in Observation through drawing and painting 
to be basic must admit the factor of light at the earliest 
possible moment, and through the thought of light as a 
cause held in the mind develop sound observation as to its 
effect on the visible world. 

It will be seen after studying the chapter on light and 
shade and reading the type lesson that even a few lessons 
adequately given will affect the pupils’ point of view to the 


178 THE ART OF SEEING 


advantage of a more unified and thoughtful observation of 
any object that attracts their sight when the thought of 
light as the source is clearly held. The fact that the pupils 
can render an incident in the history of light each in his own 
fashion makes them familiar with a larger way of seeing 
and removes all fear that shading has any difficulties be- 
yond the major ones of seeing and thinking accurately. 

If the lesson is well given the results, no matter how ten- 
tative, will be a surprise and pleasure to the pupils. In any 
case the form of the object drawn will appear in a new light, 
and exploration along a new path will be encouraged by even 
a small measure of success in the experiment. 


MEMORY DRAWING IN INTERMEDIATE GRADES 


When the sequence of Memory and Information Draw- 
ing has been practised once a week, or at least twice a month, 
in the kindergarten and primary classes, the children enter- 
ing the intermediate grades will have many accurate mem- 
ory images for use in their illustrations. They should be 
ready to draw from more complicated objects and from 
moving objects, both when the motion can be repeated for 
verification and when it cannot. Goldfish, a tortoise, a 
bird in a cage, white mice, a kitten, or a puppy may under 
many conditions be brought to class when the classes are 
not too large, or when two of an object can be obtained. 
Or one child may be drawn by lot to go through the motions 
of sweeping the floor, reaching up to a shelf, watering the 
flowers, drawing at the blackboard, or feeding an animal. 

During the half-hour when this more advanced memory 
drawing is undertaken the procedure should be as follows: 

1. The moving object should be observed. The children 
should get what they can in the way of information as to 


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179 


180 | THE ART OF SEEING 


any special motion, and record it as an Action Line during 
ten minutes. 

2. The object is then removed, or, if the children are 
using drawing boards, they turn their backs and draw the 
subject from memory, using their Action Lines as notes. 

3. The children then verify their memory drawing and 
draw Action Lines again from observation. 

4. The object is withdrawn a second time and the chil- 
dren again draw from memory. 

s. All the drawings in the sequence are put on a screen 
or on the floor (in a small class) that the children may read 
in their own drawings their progress and their needs. In a 
large class the teacher puts two series on the screen, while 
each child compares his own drawings as the teacher sums 
up the whole experience. 

When this procedure is followed it will not be necessary 
that the teacher be trained in so-called art, or even in 
drawing, to tell if the object has been well observed and 
a living motion has been retained in the mind and secured 
in the drawing. 

As there can be no doubt of the children’s interest when 
actively playing a game of this description with nature it- 
self, their attention will be intently focussed on the subject. 
There will always be interesting results even if they con- 
sist of only a few lines at first. 

When a child acts a motion to be drawn from memory, 
the same practice is used: 

1. The child goes through the motion of sweeping for a 
minute, waits for a minute, repeats the motion. The mem- 
bers of the class meanwhile get what lines of action they 
can. 

2. The children then draw the figure in action from 
memory. 


INTERMEDIATE GRADES 181 


3. The motions are gone through again for information 
and to confirm the action lines. 

4. The second memory drawing is made. 

Few or many sequences of drawings are compared and 
discussed, as time and the size of the class allow. 

Another variation in the practice of Memory Drawing in 
the Intermediate Grades is as follows: 

After an animal or an object has been drawn in the 
Memory Sequence until the subject has become familiar to 
the pupils in one position, they should be asked to draw the 
same subject from imagination in different poses. If an 
animal or bird is in question, it should be drawn drinking, 
running, flying, from a front or a back view, etc. If the 
pupils are drawing from an object, any other position should 
be imagined and drawn except the one already used. 


Memory Drawing of Light and Shade 


As the direct training of the memory is of the greatest 
importance in a Course in Observation, the teachers in the 
intermediate grades should find opportunity for such train- 
ing, if possible once a week, in any case twice a month, dur- 
ing the school year. If the conscious and subconscious mem- 
ories are strengthened and increased the power of association 
will be proportionately enriched, and the pupils’ gain in 
mental resources from the beginning will show itself in every 
subject studied. 

In the seventh and eighth grades at least, if conditions do 
not permit the practice earlier, the study of light and shade 
should be substituted for the usual sequences of memory and 
direct drawings once a month. The results will be of great 
interest and profit for teacher and pupils, even if only a small 
degree of skill be acquired in the short time allowed. 

For the practice see Type Lessons, Memory Drawing, 


182 THE ART OF SEEING 


Part III. If conditions make it necessary, the practice 
may be altered and the sequence reduced to two drawings, 
the information drawing being first in that case, followed by 
one memory drawing. It is of such importance to give the 
children the thought of light as the source of all objective 
values, that even this brief confirmation of the idea will be of 
service to them. 


MENTAL TRAINING THROUGH DRAWING FOR 
ADULTS 


A few persons only, of the millions on earth in any age, 
find adequate expression for their mental and emotional 
powers. The small number who after long training sing in 
opera, play the violin, write a lasting book or paint and 
draw to good purpose, are secretly envied by the others. A 
career in the arts is impossible for all; but every one can, by 
intelligent looking and the proving of what is seen, acquire 
a personal expression through a graphic language from which 
to build the universal language of objective expression. 

By observation and graphic proof of observation, every 
adult can be taught to look at the world with some of the 
sensations with which the painter looks, and to draw what 
he sees to the measure of his personal capacities. Special 
talent is not necessary. 

There should be no mystery about the technique of draw- 
ing and painting when used for communication. The mystery 
must be put back where it belongs in the personality of the 
artist. If fear and false standards are disposed of, any one 
can learn to draw and paint through observation. 

All children like to draw; they only stop drawing when 
artificial standards of performance are imposed on their 
minds and no effort is made to show them how to see better. 
The demand is that they produce an artistic result, which, 
in the confused adult mind, means a correct ‘‘finished”’ 
drawing far beyond any child’s technical capacity. 

The adult makes no attempt to draw, for the same reason 


that children cease to draw—a fear that ‘‘Art’’ will not be 
183 


184 THE ART OF SEEING 


the result of the effort. It is the same as if the thought of 
Shakespeare prevented us from corresponding with our 
friends. | 

In a more simple age direct contact with objects was an in- 
evitable part of every one’s life; people expressed themselves 
directly through materials. In a machine civilization most 
of us have no physical or mental contact with objects; we do 
not directly touch anything either with our hands or with our 
minds, and the sole medium for expression is by words, which 
are symbols. Therefore an unbalanced imitative life is the 
rule rather than the exception. Few of us have ever looked 
intelligently at the substantial world or have been able to 
clear our thought by proving that world objectively. 

The first drawings of an adult who stopped drawing in 
childhood are exactly like a child’s drawings. If a person 
has no understanding of why this should be and has no 
humility he will go no further; he will boast of his inca- 
pacity by saying when next the subject comes up: ‘‘I cannot 
even draw a pig with my eyes shut.’’ He has not produced 
an artistic result at once; his performance is far below his 
capacities in other lines. Why should he waste valuable 
time? Every one knows that it takes years of mechanical 
work to train the hand to draw and that children who are 
supposed to have talent for art, must leave school early and 
_ stop their education to practise drawing for many hours a 
day. 

The history of the teaching of drawing and painting con- 
firms this point of view. The ordinary man or woman does 
not know what it is all about. The teaching from the start 
is separated from vital human interests. The language of the 
artist has no personal meaning to the man on the street. A 
talented child is instantly removed to an environment out- 
side the experiences of the ordinary person. 





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185 


186 THE ART OF SEEING 


When it is sufficiently repeated and remembered that the 
artistic sense is not an isolated thing but the superior develop- 
ment of a common quality and that proved observation is the 
basis for every achievement, it will be possible to believe, in 
spite of tradition, that the hand follows a directing mind 
rather than the mind a mechanically trained hand. 

It has been found that at any age a person can begin a 
course in better observation through drawing and painting 
and gain a new point of view with pleasure and profit if he is 
willing to take the initial steps, which are: 

1. A READINESS TO ACKNOWLEDGE HIS LACK OF OBSERVA- 
TION AND TO BEGIN WHEREVER HE MAY BE. 

2. A DUE SENSE OF THE INEVITABLE WANT OF SKILL AND A 
BELIEF IN HIS ABILITY TO GET A MEASURE OF SKILL THROUGH 
OBSERVATION. 

The adult who is improving his power of seeing and 
thinking through the use of a graphic language, must begin 
where the children begin and must use the means of the 
Course as the children use them. The effort must be to re- 
gain the single eye of childhood; to examine what we actually 
see without fear or prejudice. The first step in this direction 
for the adult is to find out where he is and what things he 
has seen by custom and habit only. 

William James’s three laws of habit may be applied with 
profit at this stage: 

I. Start strongly. 

2. Make no exceptions at first. 

3. Seize every opportunity for practice. 

Most people vaguely enjoy nature and the fine weather. 
They look at objects generally in order to distinguish them 
for use, and light is a convenience rather than a subject for 
thought. They think the painter is trying to copy nature 
and persons, and to match colors, and they cannot see why 


FOR ADULTS 187 


he so often fails in his attempt. They judge him for what 
he is not even trying to do. 

When a new point of view is gained through observation, 
even if the achievement is small, the painter will have 
one more recruit for his audience, and the owner of the 
fresh vision will find his power and appreciation increased 
to sucha degree that he lives in a new world. 

A few reasons follow as to why it is profitable for adults to 
take a course in observation: 


1. To correct vague and over-literary habits of mind. 

2. To discover what they see, why they see it, and what 
is worth seeing.’ 

3. To be able to use drawing and painting as a form of 
communication, at home and in connection with 
many professions. 

4. Because it is the best form of Art Appreciation by 
which to understand the language of the masters 
and learn their point of view. 


A few comments follow on the use of the means of the 
Observation Course for adults who are able to take only a 
half-hour a day for this exercise. 

A line drill should be taken as a daily dozen, that the 
mind and hand may be freed from old habits and inhibitions, 
such as: 

A tendency to think of the line instead of the purpose. 

A tendency to fix on some small detail and lose the unity 
of thought. 

A tendency to make niggling, small corrections. Five 
minutes of line stories must always come before other 
drawing. 

Adults will find it much more difficult to interest them- 
selves in action figures than do the children. Motion is not 


188 THE ART OF SEEING 


necessarily the most interesting thing in the world to them 
as it is to a child, but if they persevere and conquer a first 
reluctance, they will soon find a new interest in observing 
people about them, and discover that trying to draw a live 
thing in motion, even with small success at first, is one of the 
most interesting games they can play. Life is the great out- 
standing fact. The adults will be quicker to see proportion 
than the children and should soon pass through the stages 
of action figures. 

Memory drawing will be baffling at first, for the grown 
person will find that the memory of even the most familiar 
object eludes him completely. <A little practice, however, © 
will convince him that he has only begun to tap latent 
possibilities, and the power to read his own progress in more 
accurate seeing and thinking will increase with each memory 
drawing. | 

As the subjects drawn must hold the attention and be 
of interest, it is not always easy to find good ones from which 
to make memory drawings in the usual house or apartment. 
Small plaster casts, Tanagra figurines, flowers, fruit, and 
vegetables, figures in action of runners and football players 
cut from newspapers, may be used. A dog or cat gives end- 
less subjects for quick-action sketches. Birds, goldfish, any- 
thing that lives and moves, trees out of the window and 
buildings, may be used for exercises in proportion. 

In the sequence of memory and direct drawing among 
children, the memory drawing is almost invariably better 
than the direct. But among adults, because of many varieties 
of bad habit and conventional ways of looking, the balance is 
altered between the conscious and subconscious memories 
and each case must be considered with regard to individual 
needs. If the direct drawings are better in proportion than 
the memory drawings the number of memory to direct draw- 


FOR ADULTS 189 


ings should be doubled. If, on the contrary, the memories 
are more accurate a larger proportion of the drawings 
should be for information. 

It is interesting to see a drawing from memory with excel- 
lent proportion alongside one done immediately afterward 
and directly from the object with inaccurate proportion. To 
observe with equal accuracy, whether drawing from memory 
or directly, is the aim of this training. The final result should 
be the power to draw as accurately and with far greater 
freedom and quality of line than when the older imitative 
methods were employed. 

One-half hour a day spent on memory drawing will bring 
adequate results in most cases. The making of even a few 
memory drawings, as outlined in the chapter on memory 
drawing, will reveal to any adult his special grading in 
observation; that is, he will be able to discover whether and 
to what degree he is seeing and thinking clearly in regard to 
the objective world. 

When a person has achieved some measure of good pro- 
portion in his drawings he may begin the study of light and 
shade (see chapter on Light and Shade), using the proportion 
of memory and direct drawing according to his needs. 

Although results in self-education may be gained from 
the use of a Course in Observation as indicated in this book, 
there should be supervision whenever possible from some one 
trained in the Course. 





PART V 


Experience is never at fault; only it is your judgment that is in 
error in promising itself such results from experience as are not 


caused by your experiments, Leonardo da Vinci 





TYPE MONTH—KINDERGARTEN 


(TIME FOR ALL HAND WORK, ONE HOUR DAILY; FOR COURSE 
CO-ORDINATED WITH REGULAR WORK ONE HALF-HOUR DAILY.) 


First Week 
First Day: 
Line Stor1es.—With Dramatization. 
Second Day: 
Action Figures.—Dramatizing of action to follow songs. 
Third Day: | 


Memory Drawing.—Of objects used in kindergarten 
work (fruits to be colored later). 
Fourth Day: 
Modelling.—In connection with drawing. 
Fifth Day: 
Line Stories.—For a few minutes. 
Imaginative Sketches.—With action figures. 


; Second Week 
First Day: 


Line Stories.—With Dramatization—Look at Imagina- 
tive Sketches. 
Second Day: 
Design.—Pick out repeat. 
Third Day: 
Memory Drawing.—From simple fruit or toy animal. 
Fourth Day: 
Imaginative Sketches.—With action figures co-ordinated 
with songs. 
Fifth Day: 
Line Stories.—Measure—Suggest drawing at home. 
193 


194 THE ART OF SEEING 


Third Week 
First Day: 
Line Stories.—A few minutes—Look at drawings 
brought in. 
Second Day: 


Design.—Pick out repeat—Draw repeat story. 
Third Day: 

Memory Drawing.—Of bird or flower. 
Fourth Day: 

Action Figures.— Playing games. 
Fifth Day: 

Modelling.—With drawing. 


Fourth Week 
First Day: 
Line Stor1es.—Measure—Review. 
Second Day: 
Design.—Dramatize principles— Pick out alternation. 
Third Day: 
Memory Drawing.—Of object or animal in connection 
with stories in regular work. 
Fourth Day: 
Action Figures.—After flag song. 
Fifth Day: 
Modelling.—From memory, fruit or bird drawn on 
third day. 


NORMAL SCHEDULE 
TYPE WEEK—PRIMARY GRADES 
(TIME, 90 MINUTES WEEKLY) 
DURING SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER 


Line Stories.—As exercise before other drawing 

twice a week for fifteen minutes.......... 30 minutes 
Action Figures.—In connection with imagina- 

tive drawings twice a week for fifteen min- 


EE PEE ne pei kk Md ccs obs we 30 minutes 
Memory Drawing.—Sequence of Memory and 
Pteteret On) LTAWING,..........0...<.....% » 30 minutes 


DURING THE REST OF THE SCHOOL YEAR 


Line Stories.—As exercise before other draw- | 
ing twice a week for ten minutes. 

Measure.—Exercises in this Means to be sub- 
stituted occasionally for Line Stories. 

Vertical and Horizontal.—Exercises in this 
Means to be substituted twice a month for 
Line Stories. 


20 minutes 


Action Figures.— Use in imaginative drawings. 
Every-Day Perspective.—Use with Action Fig- 
ures when these have been established. 


20 minutes 


Information Drawing. 

Modelling.—Exercises in this Means, accord- 
ing to Memory and Information sequence, to 
be substituted occasionally for Memory 
Drawing. 


20 minutes 


Memory Drawing.—Sequence of Memory and | 


195 


196 THE ART OF SEEING 


Design and Color.—Begin Design with the first 
three principles; add two others later. Color 
to be taught as indicated in Lessons in De- 
sign. 


20 minutes 


NORMAL SCHEDULE 


TYPE WEEK—INTERMEDIATE GRADES 5 AND 6 


(TIME, 90 MINUTES WEEKLY) 


Line Stories.—As exercise before other drawing 
once a week. 

Measure.—Games with this Means to be sub- 
stituted occasionally for Line Stories. 


Action Figures.—Use in connection with imag- 
inative drawings. Lines are to be doubled 
and figures clothed. 

Every-Day Pers pective—Use with Action Figures 


Memory Drawing.—Sequence of Memory and 
Information Drawing. Alternate drawing 
from figures in action with drawing from art 
or nature subjects. 

Light and Shade.—Exercise in this Means to be 
substituted once a month for Memory Draw- 
ing. 

Modelling.—Exercise in . this Means, according 
to Memory and Information Sequence, to be 
substituted occasionally for Memory Draw- 
ing. 


Design and Color.—First five principles of De- 
sign as applied to posters, holiday cards, etc. 
Composition. 

197 


30 minutes 


> IO minutes 


30 minutes 


20 minutes 


198 THE ART OF SEEING 


NORMAL SCHEDULE 
TYPE WEEK—INTERMEDIATE GRADES 7, 8, AND 9 
(TIME, 90 MINUTES WEEKLY) 


Line Stories.—Only for new pupils, or those re- 
lapsing into a weak, hesitating line. 


Action Lines.—To be used in drawing figures 
instead of the Action Figures for all imagina- 
tive drawing illustrating other school work. 

Every-Day Perspective.—Give occasional em- 
phasis to this means in the illustrative draw- 
ings. 


» 30 minutes 


Memory Drawing.—Sequence of Memory and 

Information Drawing. Alternate drawing 

from figures in action with drawing from art 

or nature subjects. 30 minutes 
Light and Shade.—Exercise in this Means to be 

substituted once a month for Memory Draw- 

ing. 


Design and Color.—Conventionalization of na- , 
ture examples as drawn in the Memory ¢ 30 minutes 
Drawing period. Composition. 


NORMAL SCHEDULE 
REVIEW PRACTICE FOR THE END OF THE YEAR 


(TIME, 3 WHOLE PERIODS DURING ONE WEEK IN MAY) 
PERIOD ONE—30 MINUTES 
Imaginative Drawing, illustrating a subject connected with 


the school work. This drawing is to be considered for 
the following points: 


SCHEDULE FOR INTERMEDIATE GRADES 199 


Intention and quality of line. 

Action and proportion of figures. 

Perspective. 

Cause and effect in all its bearing, involving placing. 

The following questions should be asked: 

(a) Is the story told? 

(b) Is the story a good one to tell in line, or would 
it be told better in words? 

(c) Is the story well told? 


PERIOD TWO—30 MINUTES 


A Design with Color, to be used for actual work during the 
summer vacation. 


ov to No iS 


PERIOD THREE—30 MINUTES 


Memory Sequence Drawing.—This drawing is to be compared 
with the first Memory Sequence Drawing of the year. 


ABNORMAL SCHEDULE 
TYPE YEAR—INTERMEDIATE GRADES 5 AND 6 


The normal Primary subject and time schedule 
should be followed in both grades, except in 
Design, where the normal Intermediate schedule 
should be used. In grades where Action 
Figures have been taught before, the normal 
Intermediate schedule should be used also. 


September 4 All designs must be drawn or adapted from 
memory unless the material is taken directly 
from nature; they should not be copied from 
other designs. The pupils must state in ad- 
vance the object chosen for decoration and 
the material to be used. When possible the 
material from the Memory Drawing period 
should be used. 


200 


October 


November 
and 
December 
( 


January 


February 


THE ART OF SEEING 


The normal Primary subject and time schedule 
should be followed in both grades, with the 
same exceptions as in September. 


The material used for subject or story should 
be co-ordinated as closely as possible with all 
other grade work. 


The normal Primary subject and time schedule 
should be followed in both grades, with the 
same exceptions as in September. — 


Special attention should be given to adaptations 
for Christmas and other seasonal designs. 
This should be done in all work before holi- 
days and vacations, always according to the 
principles of this Course. 


The normal subject and time schedule for Inter- 
mediate Grades 5 & 6 should be followed, with 
these exceptions: 


The Action Figures are not to be clothed, and a 
return to drawing them with single lines is to 
be made whenever action is lost or the 
proportion is not good. 


Drawing in Light and Shade should not be done 
before the second year of the Course. 


The normal subject and time schedule for Inter- 
mediate Grades 5 & 6 should be followed, with 
the same exceptions as in January. 


SCHEDULE FOR INTERMEDIATE GRADES 201 


The normal subject and time schedule for Inter- 
mediate Grades 5 & 6 should be wholly fol- 


March, lowed, unless, in the Action Figures, the 

April, motion, proportion, and expression of feeling 
and do not warrant clothing the figures. 

May 


Drawing in Light and Shade should not be done 
before the second year of the Course. 


ABNORMAL SCHEDULE 
TYPE YEAR—INTERMEDIATE GRADES 7, 8, AND 9 


The normal Primary subject and time schedule 
should be.followed in all the grades, except 
in Design, where the normal Intermediate 
schedule should be used. In grades where 
Action Figures have been taught before, the 
normal Intermediate schedule should be used 
also. 

peuuceber All designs must be drawn or adapted from 
memory unless the material is taken directly 
from nature; they should not be copied from 
other designs. The pupils must state in ad- 
vance the object chosen for decoration and 
the material to be used. When possible the 
material from the Memory Drawing period 
should be used. 


The normal Primary subject and time schedule 
should be followed in all the grades, with the 
same exceptions as in September. 

October 

The material used for subject or story should be 
co-ordinated as closely as possible with all 
other grade work. 


THE ART OF SEEING 


should be followed in all the grades, with the 
same exceptions as in September. 


November | 
and Special attention should be given to adaptations 
December for Christmas and other seasonal designs. 


This should be done in all work before holi- 
days and vacations, always according to the 
principles of this Course. 


The normal subject and tame schedule for Inter- 
mediate Grades 5’ and 6 should be followed, 
with these exceptions: 


The Action Figures should not be clothed, and — 
January a return to drawing them with single lines is 
to be made whenever action 1s lost or the pro- 


ee The normal Primary subject and time schedule 


portion is not good. 


Drawing in Light and Shade should not be done 
| before the second year of the Course. 


The normal subject and time schedule for Inter- 
February mediate Grades 5 and 6 should be followed, 
with the same exceptions as in January. 


The normal subject and time schedule for Inter- 
mediate Grades 7, 8, and g should be followed, 


March, except in Action Figures. 

aap For Action Figures follow the normal schedule 
a for I diate Grad d 6. 

May | or Intermediate Grades 5 an 


Drawing in Light and Shade should not be done 
before the second year of the Course. 


The Review Practice for all grades is the same as in the 
normal schedule. 


RESULTS TO BE EXPECTED FROM THE COURSE 
IN OBSERVATION AFTER ONE YEAR IN THE 
KINDERGARTEN 


Line Stories.—All the children should show relative prog- 
ress in the strength of their line and in their ability to hit 
the points. 

If a child has made no progress the teacher should be 
able to discover the cause from the child’s work. 

Enough exercises should have been given to furnish va- 
riety; but there should be no attempt to cover all the prob- 
lems. 

The stories to be told in line should come as naturally 
from the children as stories in words, but more should not 
be expected of them. 

These comments apply to all three divisions of ‘‘ Direc- 
tion’’: Line Stories, Measure, Vertical and Horizontal. 

Measure.—Only a few of the simplest and most dramatic 
exercises in Measure should be given during the first year. 

Vertical and Horizontal.—If the teacher finds after the 
initial lesson with the plumb line that the children are too 
young to use it for verifying the lines of their houses, the 
practice should be discontinued during the first year. 

Verification by the bottle level should not be attempted. 

Action Figures.—All the children should have sub- 
stituted the motion symbol of the Action Figure for the 
static symbol to which they have been accustomed. They 
should use the Action Figures freely and with pleasure. 

No matter how crude the expression or how poor the pro- 
portions of the figures, the stories should be intelligible ac- 

203 


204 THE ART OF SEEING 


cording to the place occupied by each child in the transition 
between the ‘‘symbolic”’ and ‘‘realistic”’ stages. 

Memory Drawing.—Most of the children should have 
made the change from subjective drawing without refer- 
ence to the objective world to the seeing and drawing of ob- 
jects directly. No time can be set for this transition, as the 
children will differ widely in this respect. The teacher 
must not make any effort to hurry it. If emphasis is put 
on communication as the aim, a child in the symbolic stage 
will soon begin to realize that his expression is not under- 
stood, and the change will come in a short time. 

If the drawings in the Memory Sequence, either those 
from memory or, direct, have any resemblance to the ob- 
_ ject, the teacher has succeeded in what she has undertaken 
for the first year. 

Design.—The first three principles of Design should enter 
into most of the hand work with kindergarten materials. 

No effort should be made at a formal teaching. If the 
practice is co-ordinated with all the work of the children, 
the results should be found in their ability to pick out the 
‘“Do-it-again”’ story and others, and in a better ordering of 
all their work. 

Color.—If color has been used freely and the usual kinder- 
garten practice for teaching primary colors followed, a start 
should have been made in the study of color relations. 
This study should be begun by comparing rather than by 
matching colors. 


Dramatization of all the Means employed is essential. 
The lessons in the Course in Observation should come in 
close connection with, and when possible, directly after the 
kindergarten work or games with which they are to be co- 
ordinated. 


RESULTS IN THE KINDERGARTEN 205 


The ideals of Froebel are to be kept in mind. In order 
that the kindergarten teacher be equipped to teach a 
Course in Observation in co-ordination with the usual 
kindergarten work, it is first of all necessary that she make 
the direct connection in her mind between the theories of 
Froebel, in which she is already trained, and the new Course. 
Both spring from the same principles and should be applied 
identically in spirit and practice. Much time will be saved 
if this fact is realized. 

No new thing is being added to pre-school and kinder- 
garten training, but better use and co-ordination of the old 
material are afforded. The Course gives to both teacher and 
pupils the objective means by which to test standards and 
progress. 

For the practical carrying on of the Means of the Course 
in Observation it is necessary that the kindergarten teacher 
be trained in the usual pedagogic studies. This can be done 
intensively and in less time where teachers have had train- 
ing in the ideas and ideals of Froebel than is necessary for 
those unfamiliar with Froebelian theories. 

The Course in Observation should enable the kinder- 
garten teacher to obtain: first, a definite graph of each 
child’s mental state and progress through his drawings; 
second, a new standard that will eliminate the merely 
‘“‘busy’’ work and allow the better co-ordination of all the 
practices which serve to establish order in the children’s 
minds. 

The necessity of examining the basis of her original 
premises, and the use of an objective test to prove her 
premises and practice, give to the teacher a fresh point of 
view which is obviously of the greatest service. 

If the Course in Observation is thought of as merely a 
new method by which the children will learn to draw and 


206 THE ART OF SEEING 


taken as an addition to their work, there will be nothing 
but disappointment and failure. 

In all the grades, but, above all, in the kindergarten, the 
children’s drawings must be read from the pedagogical side 
and primarily for their psychological value. 

During the first year in the kindergarten no great im- 
provement, judged by the superficial standards of accuracy 
and neatness, will be apparent in the children’s work. The 
results must be relative, and no rapid outward signs of 
gain can be expected for the first year. 

The teacher must measure all improvement from the 
place of the individual child in the mental scale and accord- 
ing to its needs. She should realize that Line Stories, Meas- 
ure, Standards of Vertical and Horizontal, Action Figures, 
and Memory Drawing if taught according to Cause and 
Effect are, all of them, ways of strengthening her hands in 
everything she is endeavoring to do with the children. 
She must have the vision to recognize in the incomplete 
results of the children’s efforts the establishment of better 
standards of order. 

The gradual connection is being formed between the 
child’s isolated world of personal symbols and that of shar- 
ing interests and communicating with others. The passage 
between these two stages cannot be hurried or bridged ex- 
cept by consistent teaching. The transition from drawing 
his mental images to drawing what he actually sees—from 
the subjective to the objective—may be long delayed. 


RESULTS IN THE KINDERGARTEN 207 


RESULTS TO BE EXPECTED FROM THE COURSE 
IN OBSERVATION AT THE END OF THE KIN- 
DERGARTEN PERIOD 


DIRECTION 


Line Stories.—The children should be able to tell their 
stories in a good clear line and to hit the points if they are 
not too far apart. 

In all the examples given, after Example 4, not more than 
four points should be placed, as kindergarten children 
should not be required to keep so many objectives in mind. 

Children who show marked inability to hit the points, or 
whose line fails to improve, should be carefully watched, as 
great lack of power to co-ordinate may have a physical or 
mental cause that should be discovered and cured. 

Measure.—In the easier examples in Measure they should 
begin to be able to see finer distinctions. 

The Vertical and Horizontal.—From the lessons in the 
Vertical and Horizontal and Measure the children should 
have gained the idea of the meaning of a standard. 

Action Figures.—Toward the end of the kindergarten 
period the proportions of the action figures should show a 
general average improvement. The children should have 
become aware that arms are not longer than legs, that heads 
are smaller than bodies, etc. 

Cause and Effect teaching should begin to influence the 
children to look for themselves and make comparisons in 
proportions. 

During the first years it is seldom possible to let a child 
double the lines of his action figures, as the correctness of 
the proportion in the figures will not justify the step. 

It is best not to let the children attempt to clothe the 


208 THE ART OF SEEING 


figures, but let the story of action be told as directly as 
possible. 

Memory Drawing.—In Memory Drawing, we repeat that 
the gain must be measured by the length of the step between 
that isolated state, in which the child draws something from 
his own mind and literally does not see the object before him, 
and the point where he begins to observe the object, re- 
member a few of the larger proportions and more salient 
characteristics. 

When drawing an animal, small children often omit the 
neck. To correct this habit and start the observation, some 
characteristic feature, such as swans’ necks or giraffes’ necks, 
should be observed, remembered, and drawn. 

It is not possible for small children to render objects 
accurately, whether drawn from memory or directly. The 
teacher can expect only approximate results. 

Design.—As the object of any teaching of design in the 
kindergarten is to instil conscious and subconscious stand- 
ards of order as a measure for personal choice, not only 
should the children at the end of the kindergarten period 
have learned to use their hands in so-called “‘busy”’ work, 
but all the work done should have served to emphasize, and 
make them familiar with, the first three principles of design. 

The children’s spontaneous arrangement of any material 
must show the results of this training by the time they leave 
the kindergarten, or much of the work will have served only 
to keep them occupied and pass the time. 

Color.—As color will have been used whenever possible in 
all the exercises, the children will be familiar with the pri- 
mary colors and combinations, through the teaching in 
connection with design as well as cata their own experi- 
ments. 

Line stories can be told with colored crayons, but pale 


RESULTS IN THE KINDERGARTEN 209 


colors should not be used. Much of the imaginative drawing 
should be done directly with water-color and the brush. 

It has been observed that kindergarten children choose 
less vivid colors than before they first begin to see and render 
form. This is because their attention has been strongly at- 
tracted in a new direction, and the change will be temporary. 

At the end of the kindergarten period there may still be 
a few children who remain in the symbolic stage and like 
their unintelligible drawings. 

We repeat that the child who has as yet no wish to com- 
-municate should be made to understand that the drawings 
mean nothing to others, but should not be criticised for his 
attitude. He will watch the class tell their stories and will 
want to tell his, too, when the time comes. As this transition 
is basic and signifies a completely altered mental life, it can- 
not be hastened. 

There should have been so much dramatization in the 
kindergarten that the child’s natural impulse to act out his 
thoughts will have been led into useful channels. 

It must be remembered that many bad habits acquired in 
the pre-school years have to be overcome in the kindergarten. 
Direct results cannot be expected too soon. If bad habits 
have been counteracted and the soil prepared in which the 
great principles of order and clear thinking are to be rooted, 
the teacher has accomplished much. 


RESULTS TO BE EXPECTED FROM THE COURSE 
IN OBSERVATION AFTER ONE YEAR 
IN THE PRIMARY GRADES 


Line Stories.—If the training in Line Stories has been 
consistently carried out in the kindergarten, it will not be 
necessary to give much time to Line Stories in the primary, 
except for children who have not had the training and those 
who relapse into a pale, tentative line through want of 
thought and attention. The Line Stories should be used as 
a “‘daily dozen.”’ 

The children’s lines will hold or relapse, according to each 
child’s character, until the teaching has been consistent long 
enough so that drawing a good strong line has become a sub- 
conscious habit. In every class some children will need the 
Line Stories every day, and all the children should tell them 
from time to time. 

We repeat that the aim throughout the Course is to have 
the work of those trained in it recognizable by the strength 
and purpose of its line and the increased power of observa- 
tion shown. Aside from these qualities the drawings will 
vary, as do the pupils themselves, and there should be no 
common resemblance, such as would be brought about by 
an external method of teaching. 

Measure.—In the training for Measure, Line Stories should 
be co-ordinated whenever possible with the other work. 

The children should begin to be able to approximate 
correctly by the eye alone the distance between points. They 
should never depend on a ruler for accuracy in their work; 
the ruler should not be used except to verify or in exceptional 


cases where its use is required for manual work. 
210 


RESULTS IN PRIMARY GRADES 211 


Vertical and Horizontal.—The exercises with the plumb 
line and the water level should have been given sufficiently 
often to have laid the foundation for these standards. When- 
ever the lines of houses or other objects cease to be vertical 
or horizontal the practice should be resumed weekly. In 
any case, for the primary children drawings should be verified 
monthly with the plumb line and water level. 

Action Figures.—By the end of the first primary year the 
teacher should have succeeded in establishing the action 
figure, both as an acceptable symbol of motion and as a 
means by which to observe proportion. 

All the children should use the action figures freely and 
with pleasure. When this result is not attained it is usually 
due to the teacher’s lack of dramatic suggestion in presenting 
the subject. 

The transition from the static and primitive figure to the 
action figure having been made, and the action figure estab- 
lished in the kindergarten, there should be rapid gain in the 
proportion of the figures in the first year primary classes. 

It should be possible to allow many of the children to 
double the lines as a reward for good proportion. If action 
is lessened when the lines are first doubled a return must be 
made to the single line figure. 

As action figures will be used throughout the primary for 
Every-Day Perspective, and also for illustrating much of 
the school work, the definite time needed for direct training 
in these figures will not be great if the kindergarten teaching 
has been consistent. 

Cause and Effect teaching by this time should have ban- 
ished figures with legs growing from the head, or figures with 
heads of enormous size. Children get into these habits and 
retain them only from defective seeing. The cure is to teach 
them how to look more closely and to think to better purpose. 


212 THE ART OF SEEING 


Memory Drawing.—If Memory Drawing has been con- | 
sistently taught in the kindergarten, there should be visible 
improvement at the end of the first primary year. 

The children will be as unequal in their powers of memory 
and of graphic expression as in other subjects, but every 
child, according to its ability, should be able to draw with 
reasonable proportions at the end of the first primary year. 

To gain this result there must have been continuity in the 
teaching; and much of the daily work in drawing should 
have been done from memory. 

The exercise in Memory and Information Drawing from a 
living animal or other object must have been given at least 
once a week. 

Imaginative drawings, in which the memories cannot be 
verified, do not serve in this training for memory, which is 
for the purpose of definite observation, and for which verifi- 
cation is absolutely necessary. 

As one of the purposes of the Course is so to clear the 
mind that the imagination may have good material with 
which to work, it should be evident to the teacher that 
material which cannot be checked up, while full of interest, 
is not profitable for this training. 

Imaginative drawings, however, at home and in connection 
with school work, are to be encouraged in every way. 
Through them we read the results of the training with the 
different Means used in the Course; but they are not to take 
the place of the Means until the training has accomplished 
its purpose. 

In schools where encouragement is given to imaginative 
drawing unconnected with memory drawing or other ways 
of training in better seeing, there is only chance improvement, 
and by children with special talent, the others repeating their 
bad habits year after year. 


RESULTS IN PRIMARY GRADES 213 


Design.—The children should know the five basic prin- 
ciples of design. They should be able to draw, freehand, the 
vertical and horizontal, the oblique, the square, the oblong, 
the triangle, the circle, and half-circle. 

They should also be able to make simple designs illus- 
trating the principles of design and combining the geometric 
figures for given purposes. 

Color.—The children should know the six primary colors. 
They should also know the sequence of warm and cold colors. 
They should be able to distinguish related colors and be able 
to name the complementary of any color, realizing that 
when mixed together they become gray or neutral. 


RESULTS TO BE EXPECTED FROM THE COURSE 
IN OBSERVATION AT THE END OF 
THE PRIMARY PERIOD 


Line Stories.—The children trained in the Course through 
both kindergarten and primary grades should have acquired 
a good line in their drawing as subconscious habit. 

But Line Stories should be used consistently for all 
children who have had no previous training; also when, for 
any reason, members of the class relapse into a tentative line. 

To avoid a relapse, some exercise in Line Stories may be 
given at the beginning of the school year and after the vaca- 
tion periods. 

Measure.—The exercise in Measure should be practised 
preliminarily to any work in which exactness in measure- 
ment is required. Such games as Leonardo da Vinci sug- 
gested to his pupils may be played. 

Vertical and Horizontal.—At the end of the primary period 
the standards of the Vertical and the Horizontal should 
begin to be subconscious with the children. When there are 


214 THE ART OF SEEING 


lapses, and careless thinking through hurry or inattention 
appears, the plumb line and the bottle level should be used 
to re-establish the standard. 

Action Figures.—By the end of the primary period the 
children’s action figures should have gained sufficiently in 
proportion to allow the doubling of the lines. Most of the 
class should be clothing the figures, with no loss of action. 

Cause and Effect teaching, with direct observation, enters 
here; the teacher and pupils must consider how a boy’s coat 
or a girl’s dress hangs or pulls, according to the action or the 
condition. 

The children who lose action or proportion when doubling 
the lines or clothing the figures must return for a time to the 
stage they have left and learn to look to better purpose. 

Every-Day Perspective.—As every drawing made by the 
children, after the first eight problems in Every-Day Per- 
spective have been mastered, should be considered as an 
exercise in Perspective, it will not be necessary to set aside 
special time for practice in Perspective. 

Every sketch should become a problem in Perspective. 
The questions to be asked are: What is the place of the 
observer’? And: Has that place been held in the pupil’s 
mind ? 

Memory Drawing.—Memory Drawing should enable the 
children, on leaving the primary grades, to draw from 
memory simple objects, as well as people or animals in 
action. Memory Drawing, with frequent exercise in con- 
structive memory (see Type Lesson, Part III), should be 
given in connection with any material needed in class 
projects and school and home work. There is no better way 
to give the teacher objective proof as to whether or not a 
child has a clear idea and a keen interest in the work in 
hand. 


RESULTS IN PRIMARY GRADES 215 


Design.—The children should be able to conventionalize 
in a simple manner from leaves and flowers, for holiday 
gifts, etc. | 

Color.—The children should be able to combine and use 
color more and more freely, emphasizing and enriching 
with black. 

If the training has been consistent, the children, on leav- 
ing the primary grades should make through their drawings 
an unusual record of their mental development. Their 
sketches should show a clear, firm line, a good memory for 
essentials, and the power to retain and express significant 
detail. . 

In every school there will be children who enter the classes 
from year to year without having had kindergarten training 
or training in the Course in Observation. These children 
will have bad habits of thinking and seeing, and as those 
habits will be more deeply rooted than with younger 
children, it will be more difficult to place them in a class 
already trained in Observation. 

They can be given some intensive practice with the dif- 
ferent Means, the Means being applicable to all ages and 
under many conditions. The stories and problems need only 
to be altered to suit the children’s interests. 

The children with less training should attend all class 
lessons. The new pupils will improve as they watch the 
class and take part in the drawing. It is often useful to ask 
some child to act as pupil-teacher for a special lesson. 

To sum up, children who have had the Course since their 
early kindergarten days should, at the end of the primary 
period, draw freely and with pleasure at home and in school. 

There should be consistency in their imaginative sketches, 
and a true perspective, up to the point covered by the Eighth 
Lesson in Every-Day Perspective. 


216 THE ART OF SEEING 


They should begin to dress their action figures with con- 
sideration for the way clothes would hang on these figures 
when in motion or at rest. 

Their trees and houses should show thought and obser- 
vation and must show that they held in mind the special 
kind of a tree or house suited to the story. 

The teacher’s special interest should be in those children 
who do not see well with their minds. For them the Means 
will have to be repeated, following as closely as possible their 
own interests. 


RESULTS TO BE EXPECTED FROM THE COURSE 
IN OBSERVATION AFTER ONE YEAR 
IN THE INTERMEDIATE GRADES 


Line Stories.—Enough training should have been given 
in the lower grades to establish the habit of a good line in 
every case. If a pupil’s lines are habitually poor, that pupil 
must have such time for special training in Line Stories as 
would be given to a fundamental weakness discovered in 
any subject. Otherwise the Line Stories need not be used 
after the first-year intermediate grades, except when the 
whole Course is new to a class. 

Measure.—Exercises and games in Measure are valuable 
even after the class has achieved a fair average standard. 
During the first-year intermediate grade a good standard 
may be sustained if the exercises are co-ordinated with all 
other work in which a nice sense of measure is required. 

Stories may be suggested in which the place of the furni- 
ture of the room is altered and the exact width of a space 
must be taken account of. 

Vertical and Horizontal.—The training by this time should 
have given the pupils a subconscious feeling for these stand- 
ards. If the vertical and horizontal lines in their drawings 
become careless, the exercise of proving the drawings should 
be resorted to at once. 

Action Figures.—At the end of the first-year intermediate 
grade the figures drawn by the children should have action 
and fair proportion. 

If the figures are stiff or the proportion poor the teaching 

217 


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220 THE ART OF SEEING 


has failed. There has been lack of dramatizing on the part 
of the pupil. The only way to correct these defects is to 
return to the exercises of the Course. 

The fact must be emphasized continually that action 
is attained to the extent that each pupil has felt and seen, 
before and while drawing the figure. 

Every-Day Perspective.—Examples 9, 10, 11, and 12 will 
have been given during the year. Outside of this training, 
problems in Perspective should be found in every drawing, 
for illustration or from nature. The pupils should be able, 
without hesitation, to give the position of the observer in 
their sketches. 

Memory Drawing.—The results in Memory Drawing will 
begin to show whether a pupil needs a greater proportion of 
information drawing or of memory drawing. . 

Sometimes pupils will draw well from memory and fail 
to see proportion when drawing directly from the object; 
and, in the reverse, some may show poor proportion in the 
memory drawings. In that case the class may be divided 
into two sections, one drawing in large measure from memory, 
and the other largely direct, until the weak places have been 
strengthened. : 

The first and last sets of Memory Sequences in the year’s 
work should be specially considered as tests. In the first the 
teacher will be able to read each pupil’s needs, shown by 
weakness in observation and carelessness of thought. The 
last, when compared with the first, will register the year’s 
progress. Indeed, this test should be kept in mind through- 
out the year; from time to time the Memory Sequences 
should be tested by comparison with the first set. In this 
way the teacher can measure the gain in observation in 
every case. 

Design.—The children should be familiar with the prac- 


RESULTS IN INTERMEDIATE GRADES 22] 


tice of conventionalizing from nature or memory drawings 
for the purposes of decorative design. 

Color.—In schools that have a studio, at least a few color- 
relation panels should be made in oil during the first-year 
intermediate grade. This practice is to confirm the thought 
of color relations. 

The teacher’s chief aim, in the first-year intermediate 
grade, should be to see that the graphic language of the 
pupils, for purposes of proving their observation, is flexible 
at every point; that no pupil may feel completely at a loss 
when a new subject is presented for illustration or a new 
object for representation. 

When the Course is introduced in an upper grade where 
no previous training in observation through drawing has 
been given, the first results will be primitive. All untrained 
observers have common characteristics in expression, no 
matter what their ages may be. 

If the Course in Observation has been given in the lower 
grades, the first year of its use in the intermediate grades 
will be a special test of the earlier teaching. The rudiments 
will presumably have been learned, and the pupils’ use of the 
graphic language should be spontaneous. 


RESULTS TO BE EXPECTED FROM THE COURSE 
IN OBSERVATION AT THE END OF THE 
INTERMEDIATE PERIOD 


Line Stories.—The line should be strong, showing thought 
and purpose, and Line Stories should not be necessary 
except in unusual cases. 

Measure.—The exercises and games for training the mind 
to measure can be used with profit at any age. At the end 


222 THE ART OF SEEING 


of the Intermediate Grades too many subjects must be 
considered to allow time for this training. 

Vertical and Horizontal.—The pupils should show a strong 
sense of-these directions in their drawings. The use of the 
plumb line and the bottle level should not be needed except 
in special cases. 

Action Figures.—The human figure should have been 
sufficiently observed with regard to motion so that, whether 
drawing from life or from imagination, the pupils preserve 
the action and proportion of their figures through the use of 
action lines alone, and without the necessity of using action 
figures. Animals and people should be drawn in motion, th 
action to be expressed in as few lines as possible at first. 

Every-Day Pers pective.—The perspective in the drawings of 
the pupils should be good, the place of the observer always 
having been held in mind. Their knowledge of perspective 
will be limited to those things which can be correctly drawn 
from observation and by the standard of the eye-level line, 
without reference to a teaching in scientific perspective. The 
pupils should have solved all the problems in Every-Day Per- 
spective, including the application of the eye-level line to 
interiors. 

Memory Drawing.—At the end of the Intermediate Grades 
the cumulative exercises in Memory Drawing should have 
made it possible for the pupils to make an accurate graphic 
record of whatever they wish to remember and be able to 
check up their mental processes by these records. 

The degree to which the results in Memory Drawing 
differ in various pupils should indicate their differences in 
mental accomplishment, also their needs in the balancing 
of mental and manual work. Their imaginative drawings 
should show the results of a definite intention and of 
thoughtful observation. 


RESULTS IN INTERMEDIATE GRADES 223 


Light and Shade.—Drawings in Light and Shade should 
have some degree of technical unity, proving that the 
thought of cause, when observing effects, has become a 
mental habit. 

The physical Means employed in the study of Light and 
Shade are no different from those already in use; but the 
mental attack brings a definite technical result. 

Design.—The pupils should be able to invent a design 
from any material given. The design should hold together 
in both its pattern and in its color. 

Color.—The pupils should possess a sound basis for color 
appreciation, which can only be obtained from a conscious or 
_ subconscious recognition of color relations in nature and in 
art. 

If they have been given the thought of color relations from 
their earliest years, and enough time has been found for the 
practical expression of this idea in their work, they should 
be prepared for the more definite training in oil through color- 
relation panels. 


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PART VI 
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ELEMENTS OF COMPOSITION 


When we write, speak, or draw there are two elements 
involved—the idea we have in mind, and the means we take 
to express it. The idea is our personal property, good or bad, 
but the means of expression must have some reference to the 
general understanding of other people, or communication 
fails and we remain our sole audience. It may be that we 
do not wish to communicate, in which case any sort of sound 
or symbol satisfactory’ to ourselves is adequate to the 
occasion; but generally we want to be understood, and so we 
are forced to the use of a common language. 

The arrangement of form, line, and color in such a manner 
as to express a thought or an emotion is known technically 
in the Fine Arts as Composition. Composition is based on 
mental and visual habits, and all rules that may be formu- 
lated for it have these as an origin. 

If we study our ways of looking, and the effect on us of 
what we see, it is likely that there will be little need of 
formal methods and technical rules. Composition is the 
art of telling a story, and a story may be told by any 
means that will convey the thought from one mind to an- 
other. 

Man is a talking animal. Whatever other ways he may 
have for making himself understood, words must always be 
the first. Words, however, are arbitrary symbols. They 
have meaning only .by common agreement. There is no 
special reason why in the English language a cow should be 
called ‘‘cow,’’ rather than ‘‘horse,’’ or some other agreeable 
assemblage of letters. It is so much a matter of usage that 


the peoples of the world classify themselves on a basis of 
231 


232 THE ART OF SEEING 


these arbitrary sounds. Even these sounds themselves de- _ 
pend in a measure on sight. We have no words for what 
lies beyond our experience. In a blind world there would 
be no clouds, no color, and our vocabulary would be one of 
touch, sound, and smell. 

The language of sight is of an entirely different nature. It 
is an affair of light, of the senses and the mind: it needs no 
agreement to make it understood. .Any divergence of opinion 
as to whether the subject under discussion was a cow or a 
horse would be quickly settled by an inspection of the animal 
or even by a crude drawing. 

The picture language is as old as man, but its use has been 
in the hands of the few. This is more a matter of indifference 
than inability. We take sight for granted, and forget what 
a large part of life itis tous. If we were to find ourselves able 
to read, but never having made an attempt to write, the case 
would have its parallel. 

At the present moment we are coming to the point of 
discovering our eyes, for the moving picture has, in effect, 
made all of the world visible to us, and in its way obliterated 
time and distance. Stories and distant places, described in 
form and not in words, are now an every-day experience. 

The subject of composition is here considered from the 
point of view of common experience. The object is to find 
some universal ground of sensation and understanding, for 
even formal technical rules must be based on human terms. 
If we go directly to the source, the human equation, we meet 
our problems in a more efficient manner. 

The following of a rule blindly may bring safe results, 
but rules are at best generalizations leading to type forms of 
expression. They never allow for the personal equation, 
which must enter largely into any form of graphic work. 

There is no close parallel between grammar and picture 


ELEMENTS OF COMPOSITION 233 


composition. Grammar has its definite and accepted rules 
which must be regarded, and the form of the sentences them- 
selves is a matter of personal choice within narrow limits. 
Picture composition is the expression of a balanced thought, 
and the modes of its accomplishment are as various as the 
people it serves. If the thought is well told or the emotion 
so expressed as to reach others the composition has stood the 
technical test. The limits are those of intelligibility, and 
the quality depends on the person using it rather than on 
formal methods. Words are man-made and follow the 
laws man imposes on them; the words of the visual language 
are general human reactions to visual cause. The test of 
intelligibility is a certain one for the student, no matter how 
inexperienced; it is of a nature to call out all the instinctive 
and acquired knowledge he may have at his disposal. 

It is not to be supposed that rules, manners, customs, or 
conventions, which are results from the experience of the 
centuries, are of no value. We cannot get away from them 
if we will, any more than we can assume the mentality of 
primitive man. Even in breaking away from these inheri- 
tances we measure and acknowledge them. They are the 
foundation for many of our instinctive ways. Our first 
mark does not start from the beginning. 

If we take composition as the art of telling a story, we 
have some clue at once as to the course to pursue. A story 
is not the simple statement of a fact or an emotion, but the 
presentation of it with such circumstances as enrich it and 
enhance its value. There is a central thought, point, or 
climax: all else is contributory to that and should increase 
its importance. 

A story without a point is flat. A picture without a 
centred interest is equally ineffective. Composition is 
suggestion controlled for a definite purpose. In literature 


234 THE ART OF SEEING 


this is done in sequence, the time element aiding the sugges- 
tion and leading the mind through the events to the climax, 
which in itself could be stated in a few words. In pictures 
the statement is simultaneous; all of the facts are in sight 
at once, and the mind must be carefully directed to the 
controlling one by the appropriate subordination of all the 
others. 

The subordination of secondary fact accomplishes several 
things. These minor elements not only lead the attention to 
the central thought, but increase its importance by contrast 
and suggestion. This subordination constitutes picture com- 
position and calls for choice and psychological knowledge, 
either instinctive or acquired. 

Bad composition is bad choice, and always for the single 
reason that the attention has been diverted from the centre 
of interest by lesser things. It is evident that choice must 
be based on a knowledge of human preferences—on an 
understanding of what is likely to arrest the attention, or 
what will pass unnoticed even though seen. Much of this 
knowledge can be drawn from common experience. 

The source of all of the laws and rules that might be for- 
mulated in composition is the human being. The laws for 
composition cannot be like the laws of matter, because 
human preference, which is a mental quality, is always pres- 
ent as a chief ingredient. We may average these preferences 
and establish perhaps an empirical standard of good taste; 
but beyond some few considerations which have a basis in 
general human impulses, most of the standards would de- 
pend on race, custom, and given conditions. A good compo- 
sition of to-day would have been inadmissible fifty years 
ago. We think in terms of the time. 

There are a few general human impulses which we may 
turn to our advantage in directing the attention to some 


ELEMENTS OF COMPOSITION 235 


part of the picture we consider important. The eye is 
naturally attracted by a contrast, a bright light, or a brilliant 
color. These are considerations that would influence a child 
as well as a grown person, and can all be used as a means for 
leading the attention. 

Rarity also attracts. In a quart of white beans spread 
out on the table, we would look at the one black bean in the 
lot. If we had a square filled with alternating spots of red 
and blue, no one place in the square would attract the eye 
more than another, and even the spots would lose their 
identity and merge in a general tone. If we decreased one 
color and increased the other we would produce the attrac- 
tion of rarity and look at the lesser quantity. We value 
that of which we have least. 

If we wish to attract attention by a contrast, there must 
be no other contrast so great as that at the point of interest. 
The eye naturally seeks climax. It is human in its preferences 
and is attracted by the unusual or the extreme. 

In addition to focusing the eyes and the attention on the 
centre of interest there are natural methods of emphasizing 
it by its surroundings. A superior interest is made more 
superior by inferior ones about it. It shines by contrast, and 
dulness serves its useful purpose. This process would be 
called the Subordination of the Accessories in technical 
language. It occurs automatically in our mental concept 
whenever the attention is fixed on one spot. In direct draw- 
ing or painting the student may well forget this fact, mak- 
ing each minor thing as he works an interest in itself. 

There can be but one centre of attraction. Rambling 
remarks do not make a story: even a verbatim report must 
contribute to a situation. Presumably we pick our subject 
for some special interest it has for us—color, light, form, or 
some human association; and whatever we save out of all 


236 THE ART OF SEEING 


that might be said, we make of importance, major or minor, 
as the case may be. We call it choice, and we ourselves are 
the rules for its practice. Choice depends on the quality of 
our perceptions. 

There are other and more mechanical ways of directing 
the attention through lines and sequence of spots. The eye 
is likely to follow a line having some sensation of movement. 
The eye rests on a spot, but it moves with a line. It is also 
attracted by regularity of spotting, which is in effect a 
broken line. This was recognized during the World Warin 
the placing of the guns so as to avoid any arrangement of 
spots which would easily be seen. 

A line may lead the eye in either direction. Parallel lines 
are indeterminate, but if the lines converge the eye follows 
in the direction of the point of meeting. If two lines cross 
they practically become four, and we naturally look at the 
point of crossing. Direction may be modified and the sugges- 
tion reversed by some thought such as that of light radiating 
from a source. In either case motion to or from a central 
point is implied. 

These means of directing the attention are valuable since 
they follow the instinctive action of the mind. They have 
their reason in our unconscious habits of sight, and are the 
more potent for being unconscious since they do not interrupt 
or divert the attention but lead the mind to the point of 
interest as the natural place to look. The painter is deliberate 
in his methods, but if he were to follow his instincts alone, he 
would employ the same means, for, to all of us, ‘‘things look 
that way.”’ 

Though we speak of the foregoing means as representation 
in connection with the composition of a picture, the same 
considerations apply to design. A border might repeat a 
filled space; the space itself may be so centred as to draw the 


ELEMENTS OF COMPOSITION 237 


attention, forming a second repeat. Or the idea of motion 
could be given by leading the eye from one space to the next. 
The problem is how to attract and lead the attention to the 
spot of our choice. 

All of the general habits of seeing are of use to us, whether 
our picture is to tell the story of a sensation or to advertise a 
cereal. We have the habit of generalizing our visual sensa- 
tions, and in some few cases we reduce them to a sort of 
abstract symbol. Line, which is a symbol, since it does not 
exist in nature, means to us boundary of form or a sequence of 
objects, big or little. Line also stands for the sensation of 
motion when used in such a way as to increase the suggestion 
of motion. These abstractions generalize some special ex- 
perience and are like the word identifying an object. 

Lines are graphic words and not an objective statement. 
They are always used in connection with the objective; they 
would not be sufficiently specific used alone. Rising wavy 
lines, for instance, would suggest heat when used in con- 
nection with a volcano in eruption, the association being with 
the feeling of motion in-radiating heat, or the refraction 
seen above a heated surface. With lines of motion the sensa- 
tion of movement is given by the association. 

In addition to these symbols of common experience, we 
have modifications of form due to our manner of seeing. 
When we look at a spot our eyes and our attention are 
focussed on that spot, and the image is clear and distinct. 
We are conscious of much else, but it is seen vaguely both 
as to precise form and detail. If we recognize this fact in our 
use of objects and color, we have what corresponds to a 
mental picture; that is, the subordination of much in sight 
to a point of special interest. In such a picture it would 
be difficult to miss the interest, because the arrangement 
' corresponds with our habit of seeing. 


238 THE ART OF SEEING 


There are other deliberate variations from literal form — 
that are expressive and useful, particularly in giving the 
sensation of motion. One class of these is based on the com- 
posite image we see—the actual visual difference between a 
still and a moving object. The common example is a revolv- 
ing wheel which is a blur of spokes to the eye, though struc- 
turally it has definite form. A high speed photograph would 
show the structure but not the condition. 

Visually it is not so much what the object is as what is 
happening to it that matters. This brings us back to our 
story. Moving figures do not give us a sharp image. In 
spite of that fact we are more likely to associate motion with 
the poise of the body than with any blurred outline we might 
see, and so, following a common habit of thought, we depend 
on poise to give the sensation. 

If we remember that there is a chief interest in the picture 
we can generally depend upon a natural instinct for the 
placing of the subject in the space to be covered by the 
drawing or painting. There must be enough room to tell the 
story. Scale and, to some extent, placing are established 
with this thought. Our principal figures or our most im- 
portant objects cannot be larger than the limits of the space, 
or so big as to leave no room for the minor things that 
surround them. 

The well-told story does not consist of the point alone; 
the choicely balanced circumstances as well give real value. 
There must be space enough to tell all that need be known in 
connection with the principal interest. 

There are as many ways of arranging the elements of a 
picture as there are people; and all of them are good so long 
as the story is told. There are some things, however, that 
are not done, chiefly because they would divert instead of 
enhance the interest. To avoid these things, most of the - 


ELEMENTS OF COMPOSITION 239 


rules are written. But habits of sight change as well as 
conventions, and rules should constantly be modified to 
meet changing conditions. Common sense is a good guide, 
perhaps even the best. 

The main thing to remember is that we are trying to tell 
something, and that irrelevant remarks damage the telling 
instead of clarifying it. The general effect of irrelevant 
statement is to bore, and nothing is more boring than the 
pointless story. 

Following this thought, the main interest of a drawing 
could scarcely be crowded to one side of the space without 
making its position a subject of attention. If such a fact 
belonged to the story it would be good composition; but if 
there was no reason for it, the placing is faulty, as it intro- 
duces a thought that has nothing to do with the subject. 
The question to be considered is whether or not the attention 
is diverted from the main point by unexpected lack of space 
or the loss of something that should be there. 

We do not look at the expected, but we notice the loss of 
it. The problem comes often in this form to the portrait 
painter, who must subordinate the hands of his sitter to 
the face, though they may be as bright a spot as the face it- 
self. The obvious way to avoid the difficulty is by reducing 
the light on the hands with a cast shadow, so centring the 
attention by a superior light-attraction on the face. If the 
hands are left out or manifestly underpainted they become a 
subject of notice. The psychological point to strike is that 
of indifference. The hands would be seen if they were too 
prominent, missed if they were omitted, but accepted with- 
out thought at the place of perfect balance. We have a case 
of psychological values—mental values, which enter into 
every composition and determine the emphasis that shall be 
given to each object. 


240 THE ART OF SEEING 


To the realist of former days it would be heresy to imply 
that any advantageous change could be made in what 
nature offers our eyes. Yet even his mind selected such of 
the facts as interested him and rejected the rest. Nature is 
like the country store where we are buying the materials for 
our pudding. We find whatever we are looking for, and 
if our mind were set on breakfast instead of dinner we would 
be served equally well. The real estate dealer, a friend of 
nature, as he talks of his land, does not deal in all of the facts 
any more than does the painter who looks at nature to 
find his material. 

It is necessary to make a distinction between the visual 
effect of form and of color. Form appeals to the mind in 
many ways, both directly and indirectly. It has the power 
of suggestion that leads the mind through association limited 
only by the mental quality of the person. Color, on the 
other hand, is an emotional experience. It has no intellectual 
value, and if there is suggestive power to its influence, that 
power is connected with some superficial association. Being 
emotional, color is a very personal affair, and has to be 
regarded accordingly. Bad color is a matter of opinion. The 
color sense is like that of taste or smell. There is no evil in 
any one of the sensations, although there may be a warning. 

The finest development of the color sense, as might be 
expected, is found in color composition, which includes not 
only the color relations, one to another, but also the color 
quantities. The quantities in any arrangement of color 
require personal choice. The possible combinations which 
may be used, even to fill a small space, are literally without 
number. 

The most direct way to measure the importance of color 
quantities is from nature; for, though the principle is the 
same wherever we may be, the source of light is unobstructed 
out-of-doors, and the larger relations are easier to follow. 


ELEMENTS OF COMPOSITION 241 


If we take the simplest possible subject, sea and sky, we 
have, if we omit detail, but two general colors, which are 
definitely related, one to the other, by the quality of the day. 
The color relation is fixed and may not be changed if that 
special hour is to be recorded. The proportion we give these 
two colors, however, is a matter of personal choice. 

The Eye-level Line, wherever it is drawn to divide the 
color, establishes the height from which we have looked. 
The division is between sea and sky, but its placing depends 
on whether our eyes are turned up or down. They could be 
turned down so much that we could see but little sky, and the 
eye-level line would be at the top of the composition; or it 
might be that our interest lay in the sky, and the place of 
the eye-level line would be lowered accordingly. The division, 
then, depends on where we find our interest, and by the 
division we indicate our interest. 

When we look from a mountain top, the fact that much 
country is spread before us leads us to look down. Our eye- 
level line is, therefore, high in the picture, but that is due 
entirely to our interest, for if our gaze were level we would 
see as much sky as land, and the line would come at the 
middle. This impulse to look down is so strong when looking 
from an airplane that we see very few photographs taken 
in the air with any eye-level line at all, and we are led to 
wonder if in such circumstances it would not be found in 
some unusual place. 

The emotional value of color, generally, escapes us alto- 
gether, and yet color is always before us; we live in a colored 
world. In the case of the sea and sky, whatever our thought 
of form and incident may be, we are in a state of color 
emotion as we receive the facts. Color is like the music of a 
pleasant voice as the story is told; it has little to do with the 
narrative, and yet it represents the surrounding atmosphere. 

The sensation we receive from a given color relation 


242 THE ART OF SEEING 


changes with the proportions. There is always a quantity at 
which each color is at its finest in a color design. In planning 
a picture a painter would consider how large a space he can 
give to his green meadow, in relation to the other color 
divisions, to have the green at its best, or in painting the sea 
and sky, what should be the proportion of one to the other. 
This choice of proportion is a direct appeal to the color sense, 
an intimate and personal matter which seems to vary with 
every individual. There are no reasons one can give for such 
an instinctive choice. The important thing is to know that a 
choice is made and to lend the aid of the conscious to the 
subconscious mind. 

Every test to which composition may be put is based on 
a human intention. If our subject is a border—a surface to be 
enriched with form and color—surface is the underlying fact 
and must not be lost, whatever decoration is used. If, in 
representation, some thought or emotion is to be expressed 
through material appearances, a good composition is one that 
tells the story adequately. The simple statement of a fact 
alone will not be of great importance. It must be remem- 
bered that it is impossible to make a statement without 
any accompanying suggestion. When we say ‘‘the man 
died’’—without other facts—we have the story of the mor- 
tality of man in a way too general to be interesting. The 
details mentioned in connection with the death make it a 
story, increasing the suggestion and giving the event special 
significance and perhaps importance. 

The picture of a jug on a table is the fact of a jug, but it 
may be much else. The visual fact of a jug alone is like the 
simple statement of an event—a topic but with nothing 
said about it. Although there might be nothing to say in 
words, in terms of sight the case is different. To see the 
jug at all there must be light, and light is a major event. 


ELEMENTS OF COMPOSITION 245 


A topic is the subject of our thought, but the surrounding 
circumstances elaborate, explain, and give importance to 
that thought. It is in the control of these elements that 
Composition finds its place. 

The purpose of Composition will be clearer to most of us 
if the mind can be freed from the thought of imitation and 
the picture be made as a deliberate attempt to use form and 
color in the same manner as we use words, stating our point 
and elaborating it by the choice of qualifying circumstances. 

There are no mysteries in such language. Where it be- 
comes abstract, general experience has been summed up and 
an average type made to represent that class of sensation. 

No fine thought is the better for being unintelligibly 
expressed. To be coherent and intelligible is the first step 
in communication, whatever may be the ulterior aim. The 
language must be learned, whether we want to write a letter 
or to illustrate an advertisement. Drawing and painting as 
Art are found in their purpose rather than in their forms. 
The painter, even in his mode of thought, differs from the 
rest of the world in degree rather than in kind. 

Composition is a technical process, so in its way is eating. 
Neither is reserved for a few specially favored persons. The 
painter is trying to express some thought or emotion drawn 
from a source that is universal. He has no restricted 
way; he travels a road that all may take to the limit of their 
perceptions. 


ELEMENTS OF DESIGN 


INTRODUCTION 


The seven lessons in Design in the Course in Observation 
cover the fundamental principles of Design. From these 
principles arise all possible variations, and it is only as the 
children possess and adapt them that their future grasp of 
the subject is assured. The Line Stories, Measure, and the 
Standards of Vertical and Horizontal in the Course form a 
natural preparation and introduction to the study of Design. 

Before letting the children make an original design, the 
teacher should lead them to suggest an object or a material 
to which it may be applied, so stimulating interest in the 
knowledge of the practical use of Design. Designs always 
must be for a specific object, in thought if the actual object 
is not at hand. 

Natural objects, or pictures of them, should be shown in 
class to point out nature’s consistent laws of order, which 
form the basis of all Design. . 

Whenever possible, dramatize these principles of order. 
They may be illustrated in this way with the children: 

A row of children becomes a problem in Repetition. 

A line of children, first a boy then a girl, or one child 
facing front and another back, or one kneeling and one 
standing, illustrates Alternation. 

The children standing according to their heights, the 
shortest at one end and the tallest at the other, illustrates 
Progression. 

Simple problems of Axial and Central Balance may also be 


worked out in similar manner in the children’s games. 
2d 


ELEMENTS OF DESIGN 245 


It is of the greatest importance that the children apply 
the principles of Design in as much of their daily work as 
possible. For instance, when they plan note-books or charts, 
which usually are made up of printing, drawings, and pasted 
pictures, the teacher should set them to thinking of the 
balance and order in the divisions and spacings of the pages. 
In all of their written work, also, they should think of the 
placing of margins, titles, illustrations, etc., in accordance 
with the principles of Design. 

The children will become more observant of their surround- 
ings at home if the teacher suggests that they bring to school 
some object or picture which illustrates a principle of Design, 
and that they find these principles in rugs, carpets, wall- 
paper, and materials among their immediate surroundings. 

Visits to museums will become more profitable after the 
objects near at hand have been analyzed, for the children 
will enjoy finding the most interesting illustrations of the 
principles of Design with which they have already become 
familiar. | 

Whenever possible, the children should be shown, and be 
allowed to examine, good original examples. When these are 
not available they may be shown reproductions or photo- 
eraphs—of such things as textiles, carvings, metal work, 
Indian baskets, illuminated manuscripts, etc. 

It is important that the children should draw good designs 
from memory instead of copying them directly. The reason 
for this was elaborated in the chapter on Memory Drawing. 

The examples given in this book illustrate the basic princi- 
ples in the simplest way. They are to be used as sug- 
gestions to stimulate any number of variations for problems 
in Design. 

The six standard colors only are used in the first three 
lessons. After the third lesson, black and white are intro- 


246 THE ART OF SEEING 


duced. In later lessons the colors are reviewed, in related — 
sequences and in complement. 

In the kindergarten the first three principles are to be 
taught as demonstrated by the geometric figures in the 
seven lessons. The drawings should be on a large scale and 
done with the same rapidity and firmness as in the Line 
Stories. 

As the five principles covered by the seven lessons are 
basic, they should all be given in the first year of the 
primary grades. From each exercise the children should in- 
vent as many simple original designs as time permits. The 
principles and exercises should be reviewed in the second and 
third years of the primary, using paint and brush as well as 
crayon for the practice. 

In the intermediate grades the recognition and application 
of all the principles should have become habitual. The 
geometric figures and the laws of order should be so familiar 
to the pupils that innumerable designs will spring from this 
foundation, according to the value of suggestion, from the 
material and the imagination of the pupil. 

Occasions for the practical use of Design in every-day 
matters will multiply as the pupils grow older. The work 
should be in close co-ordination with the school and home 
needs of each child. | 

In conventionalizing for Design, the subject should be 
chosen either directly from nature or from the pupil’s 
memory drawings. The designs of others should never be 
copied; when they are made use of, they should always be 
drawn from memory. 

Suggestions for greater variety of pattern must be worked 
out by the teacher according to the material and time 
available. Different groupings of figures, changes in position, 
of number, size, or color; enrichments by lines and dots; the 


ELEMENTS OF DESIGN Q47 


combination of two shapes—all these may be used as the 
exercises proceed from the simplest forms to increasingly diffi- 
cult patterns. 

By these means the children will acquire a fundamental 
knowledge of Design and a permanent interest in the appli- 
cation, consciously or subconsciously, of their own knowl- 
edge to all objects that can be decorated with which they 
may come in contact. 

If children begin by applying the large principles of order 
to their own world, their appreciation and interest in the 
Fine Arts will be set on a sound basis. Every-day use of 
these principles will help them to acquire standards of 
good taste and discrimination. 

The teacher should have constantly in mind the fact that 
- the origin of design was the desire to add to the beauty and 
value of some object by setting lines to form patterns in 
some special order to that end. Therefore children should 
associate from the start a material or an object with their 
designs. 


Tue NAMES OF THE Five Basic PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN 
PARAPHRASED FOR THE CHILDREN 


1. Repetition—* Do it again and again.” 

2. Alternation—‘‘First one thing and then another.”’ 

3. Progression—‘‘Things of different sizes growing from 
little to big or large to small.”’ 

4. Axial Balance—‘‘The same weight on each side of a 
line.”’ 

5. Central Balance—‘‘The same weight about a point.” 


These five principles can be made clear to the children 
at an early age through the paraphrasing of the technical 


248 THE ART OF SEEING 


terms as above. The names of the principles should be | 
given in the grades beyond the kindergarten, but not in- 
sisted on until the pupils are thoroughly familiar with their 
practice. Each time a new exercise is presented, the pupils 
should repeat the paraphrase of the principle in question. 

Nature’s habits of order should be pointed out, and as 
many as possible of the nature examples mentioned in the 
Lessons in Design, should be shown in class. The children 
should bring to school pine cones, honeycombs, seeds, cells, 
etc., and should be asked the principles involved in the 
pattern of each. 

The objects chosen for drawing should be the ones which 
best illustrate a given principle, and they should be drawn 
according to the Memory Drawing Sequence. The principles 
must be emphasized, in order that the children may hold 
them in their minds as they draw. 


LINE STORIES 


The training in Line Stories is continued from Part III 
and developed in connection with the teaching of the prin- 
ciples of Design through the simpler geometrical figures. 

The Line Stories are co-ordinated with the first three 
principles of Design as early as possible in the Kinder- 
garten. | 

The Line Story is told first and the line or figure drawn 
used as the motive for the practice in Design. The train- 
ing in Vertical and Horizontal lines and Oblique or Diagonal 
lines and suggestions for stories may be found in Part III 
in the chapter on Line Stories. 

As the Oblong is a variation of the Square, type stories for 
the training in Line Stories are omitted before Lesson IV. 
There is no Line Story training for the Half-Circle. 


ELEMENTS OF DESIGN 249 


Lesson I—VERTICAL AND HoRIZONTAL 
(Colors: Red and Orange) 


Problem 1.—Line Stortes. 
Example in nature: Trees in relation to the ground. 
(For type of material see chapter on Line Stories.) 
Problem 2.—Repetition. 
Examples in nature: 
(Vertical) Tree trunks in a row. 
(Horizontal) Lines on shells. 
Problem 3.—Alternation. 
Examples in nature: Spots on snakes. 
Problem 4.—Progression. 
Examples in nature: Deer’s antlers. 
Problem 5.—Axial Balance. 
Examplein nature: Man. 
Problem 6.—Central Balance. 
Examples in nature: Snow crystals (photograph of 
crystals). 


Lesson [I—OBLIQUE 
(Colors: Yellow and Green) 


Problem 1.—Line Stories. | 
Examples in nature: Blown rain or sleet. 
Problem 2.—Repetition. 
Examples in nature: Marks of wind and tide on sand. 
Problem 3.—Alternation. 
Examples in nature: Spots on fish. 
Problem 4.—Progression. 
Examples in nature: Lines on shells. 


250 THE ART OF SEEING 


Problem 5.—Axial Balance. 
Example in nature: Growth of tree branches. 


Problem 6.—Central Balance. 
Examples in nature: Minerals and snow crystals. 


Lesson III—SQUARE 
Line Stories—Example 


LET THE CHILDREN PLACE FOUR POINTS ON THE BOARD 
AND CONNECT THEM BY LINES SO AS TO MAKE A SQUARE. 
These points must be so used as to make regular figures. 
The geometrical names of the figures should be mentioned 
but not insisted on. This practice will give the children an 
idea of the fact that figures may be classified. 
Classification is a mental habit to be established as early 
as possible. 
The teacher should remember that the story should come 
first, the name of the figure afterward. 
A type story by a boy. 
The farmer’s children brought milk from the farm here 
every morning to three houses rented by city people. 
They put the glass bottles of milk on a small wagon 
Show where the children drew the wagon. 
A type story by a girl. 
A robin started from the nest here to get a worm for his 
children. 
He found a fat one here but, by mistake, ate it himself. 
At the next place here another bird got the worm first. 
He had to go on here to find a good worm to bring batk 
to the nest. 
Show where the robin went to get food for his children. 


ELEMENTS OF DESIGN 251 


Lesson IJI—Souare 
(Colors: Blue and Violet) 


Problem 1.—Line Stories. 

No examples in nature. 
Problem 2.—Repetition. 

Examples in nature: Spots on frogs and toads. 
Problem 3.—Alternation. 

Examples in nature: Spots on birds’ feathers and 

tails. 

Problem 4.—Progression. 

Example in nature: Segmented worm. 
Problem 5.—Axzal Balance. 

Examples in nature: Flower forms. 
Problem 6.—Central Balance. 

Example in nature: Starfish. 


| Lesson IV.—OBLONG 
(Review of Colors) (Warm and cold colors) 


Problem 1.—Line Stories. 

No example in nature. 
Problem 2.— Repetition. 

Example in nature: Honeycomb. 
Problem 3.—Alternation. 

Examples in nature: Spots on bugs and beetles. 
Problem 4.—Progression. 

Examples in nature: Birds’ feathers. 
Problem 5.—Axial Balance. 

Example in nature: An apple cut lengthwise. 
Provlem 6.—Central Balance. 

Examples in nature: An apple or tomato cut, cross- 

wise. 


252 THE ART OF SEEING 


Lesson V—TRIANGLE 
Line Stories—Example 


Let the children place one point above and two below on 
the board, about a foot apart. Start at the upper point and 
draw to each of the others, returning to the upper point. 

These points must be so placed as to make a regular 
triangle. 

A type story by a boy: 
A steamboat started from the city here. 
She dropped some passengers at an island here. 
Took on some at another island here and went back to 
the city. 
Show where the boat went on her round trip. 
A type story by a girl: 
Sister wanted a pennant for our school inta hurry. 
She had some blue felt and cut out a three cornered 
piece as quickly and as straight as she could. 
Show where the scissors went as she cut out the pennant. 


LEsson V—TRIANGLE 
(Related Colors) 


Problem 1.—Line Stories. 

Examples in nature: Snowflakes. 
Problem 2.—Repetition. 

Examples in nature: Spots on fishes, snakes, shells. 
Problem 3.—Alternation. 

Examples in nature: Spots on a leopard. 
Problem 4.—Progression 

Examples in nature: Angles in a spider’s web. 
Problem 5.—Axial Balance. 

Example in nature: Butterfly. 


ELEMENTS OF DESIGN 253 


Problem 6.—Central Balance. 
Examples in nature: Eye in tail feathers of pheasants 
and peacocks. 


Lesson VI—CIRCLE 
Line Stories—Example 


LET THE CHILDREN PLACE ONE POINT ON THE BOARD AND 
THEN DRAW A CIRCLE ROUND IT WITH A SINGLE SWEEP OF THE 
ARM. 

A circle is a line every point of which is at the same dis- 
tance from a centre. For this reason the centre should be 
placed first that the conception of the figure may be correct, 
whatever the attainment. To draw the curve first and place 
the centre later destroys the thought of the figure. 

Accurate results are not to be expected. The exercise finds 
its chief technical value in the freedom of movement from 
the shoulder as a pivot. 

As in the preceding lessons, a definite point must be hit, 
the point from which the children start to draw the curve; 
but at the same time, the line of the circle has a constant 
reference to the central point, which gives two points to the 
exercise; one a definite objective, the other held in the mind. 

In drawing circles, the work should be done at the board 
when possible. At the desk, the motion must come neces- 
sarily from the elbow and the pencil must be held vertically 
in the fingers. 

Type Stories : 
Here is a Maypole. 
Here is a circle of children dancing round it. 
Show the Maypole and where the children danced. 


Here is where a stone fell into the water. 
Here is the circle it made on the water. 
Show where the stone went in and the circle. 


254 THE ART OF SEEING 


Lesson VI—CIRCLE 
(Complementary Colors) 


Problem 1.—Line Stories. 

Use stories with the drawing of the circles. 
Problem 2.—Repetition. 

Examples in nature: Peas in a pod. 
Problem 3.—Alternation. 

Examples in nature: Spots on shells. 
Problem 4.—Progression. 

Examples in nature: Sizes of leaves on a stem. 
Problem 5.—Axial Balance. 

Examples in nature: Flowers branching from stem. 
Problem 6.—Central Balance. 

Examples in nature: Any flower with round corolla. 


Lesson VII—HA.r-CircLeE 
(Choice of Color or Choice of Warm or Cold Color Sequence) 


Problem 1.—No Line Stories—Draw Nature Example from 
memory. 

Examples in nature: Shells. 
Problem 2.—Repetition. 

Examples in nature: Seeds in a suntlower. 
Problem 3.—Alternation. 

Examples in nature: Spots on butterflies. 
Problem 4.—Progression. 

Examples in nature: Progression in flower petals. 
Problem 5.—Axial Balance. 

Example in nature: A Spider. 
Problem 6.—Central Balance. 

Example in nature: Sand Dollar. 


ELEMENTS OF DESIGN : 255 


APPLICATION OF LESSONS IN DESIGN SUGGESTIONS FOR THE 
KINDERGARTEN 


The first three fundamental principles of Design—Repeti- 
tion, Alternation, Progression—may be taught in the 
kindergarten. 

The Line Stories, the three first principles, and the simple 
geometric figures are covered in the first four problems in 
each of the seven lessons. 

The teacher should think of the principles of Design in 
the children’s words. 

Repetition is a ‘“‘Do it again and again”’ story; Alterna- 
tion is a story of ‘‘placing first one thing and then another”’; 
Progression is a “‘setting of things in order from little to big 
or large to small’’—these terms indicate arrangements that 
are soon discovered by the children in their surroundings and 
in their kindergarten work and play. 

The lessons should be co-ordinated directly with the Line 
Stories. They may easily be illustrated with kindergarten 
materials before drawing is attempted. 

The following type lessons with the circle should suggest 
to the kindergarten teacher the way in which the first four 
problems in any of the lessons may be applied to her class. 


Type LESSONS WITH THE CIRCLE FOR THE KINDERGARTEN 
Repetition.—A ‘Do it again and again”’ story. 
Type Lesson I—Size 
We have told our circle stories on the board and we have 
found all the round things in this room—the clock face, balls, 
rings, and the tops of our mugs. 


We play games in a ring and we cut large and small circles 
out of our gay colored papers. 


256 THE ART OF SEEING 


We are going to take some of the circles we have cut out 
and tell a “‘Do it again and again story”’ by the way we 
paste them on our cards. 

We will choose whether we want a large or a small circle 
and paste it on the card; then we will do it again and paste 
a circle exactly like the first one next door, then another 
circle of the same size until we have told a ‘‘Do it again and 
again’’ story. 


Type Lesson II—Color 


To-day we are going to tell another ‘‘Do it again and 
again”’ story. 

We will choose big or small circles of whatever color we 
like best. 

Harry likes a big red circle and Tom a small green circle. 

Harry will paste his red circles and Tom his green ones 
in a row on his card. 

We can tell our ‘‘Do it again and again stories” by pasting 
the circles across the card or up and down on the card. Which 
will each child choose to do? 

See how much straighter Harry pasted his circles to tell 
his story than he did last week. 


Alternation—A ‘‘First one thing and then another”’ story. 
Type Lesson [—Size 


Here are our cards with ‘‘Do it again and again”’ stories 
on them, told in circles. 

To-day we are going to tell a different story with circles. 

We will take a large circle and paste it on the card. Now 
we will place a smaller circle next to it. Now another large 
one and next to that a small one. What story have we told? 


ELEMENTS OF DESIGN 257 


The story of ‘‘First one thing and then another’’—first a 
circle of one size and then a circle of another size, marching 
across the card. 


Type Lesson I[I—Color 


We will tell a “First one thing and then another’”’ story 
in another way. 

First we will paste a large red circle on our cards. Then 
a small green circle next to it. Then another red one and a 
green circle to follow. 

We have a story of first one kind of color and then another 
kind across or up and down our cards. 


Progression.—A ‘‘From little to big and from large to small”’ 
Story. 
Type Lesson I—Size 


We will tell another story with circles—three kinds of 
circles—big, middle sized, and little, like the three bears. 
We will paste the circles across the card. First a little circle, 
then a middle sized circle, and then a big circle. 

Now we will begin again with the smallest circle. 

Our card looks like a ladder with big rounds on which 
we could climb up on one side, down again on the other, and 
then up and down. 

We have told a ‘‘From little to big and from large to 
small’’ story with circles. 


Type Lesson—Color 


The story we told with little, middle sized, and big circles 
we will tell in another way. 

We will tell it with three colors—red, yellow, and blue. 

The little circles are red. The middle sized circles are 
yellow. The big circles are blue. 


258 THE ART OF SEEING 


We will paste the circles across the card. First a little red - 
circle. Next a middle sized yellow circle. Then a big blue 
circle. 

Now we will put another large blue circle to keep that one 
company, and next the little red circle. 

Do you remember what story we have told with the earles 
of different sizes and different colors? 


NotE—The kindergarten teacher should read the more 
detailed suggestions for the application of the lessons in the 
primary grades. Many of the problems can be simplified 
and used for the kindergarten. 


APPLICATION OF LESSONS IN DESIGN 
Suggestions for the Primary Grades 


The application of the seven lessons in Design has been 
worked out in more detail for the primary classes than for 
the kindergarten or the intermediate grades. 

As the teaching plan is similar for all the grades, the dif- 
ference between the primary and kindergarten or inter- 
mediate grades is in the simplification of the problems for 
the one and the elaboration of them for the other. 

None of the exercises need be applied literally. They are 
to be taken as suggestions to the teacher and adapted 
according to the special conditions presented by the class. 

Before considering a Design, there should always be dis- 
cussion by the class of the possibilities and limitations both 
of the object to be decorated and the medium to be used in 
decorating. 

A full type lesson in co-ordination with modelling is given 
for the primary grades in addition to the exercises for each 
lesson in the principles of Design. 


TYPE LESSONS WITH GEOMETRIC FIGURES 
USED IN THE SEVEN LESSONS IN DESIGN 


FOR THE PRIMARY GRADES 


259 


Lesson I—Vertical and Horizontal 


The children will decorate a calendar, a holiday card, or 
any other simple flat object, with a border. They may use 
one or more of the first three principles—Repetition, Alterna- 
tion, or Progression. 

The colors indicated in the lesson (red and orange) should 
be used. 


260 


NO! VERTIGAL — HORIZONTAL 
COLORS RED~ ORANGE 


1 DRAW LINES 
et | aso. 
Aree LION 


a 


SALTERNATION 


Sey 
4 PROGRESSION 
.@) 
OQ ‘i 
eel ||SI|=I 
5 AXIAL BALANCE 


re | to. 


ce) 








é CENTRAL BALANGE 
al aa ae 
Ras [ - | _R 
ee Pe: 


Vertical and Horizontal Examples Illustrating Lesson No, 1 in Design, 
261 


Lesson II —Oblique 


Let the children invent a design for decorating the ends 
of a long scarf. The principles of Axial Balance and Central 
Balance are to be used. 

Yellow and green are the colors with which the design is 
to be made. 

This lesson may be varied with designs for scarfs, towels, 
trays, small rugs, etc. 


262 


NO,2 OBLIQUE. 
YELLOW +GREEN 


| DRAW LINES. 


oe NG 


eres fe CUTLON, 


Me ~We 


3SALTERNATION. 


B/N) \/ 


4 PROGRESSION: 


DAA IA 


S AXIAL BALANG By. 


i; 


6 CENTRAL BALANGE. 
a 
va a < 
FIRS 


Oblique Examples Illustrating Lesson No. 2 in Design 
263 


Lesson III—Square 


Let the children make a design for a book cover, a book 
end, or a picture frame. Each child in the class may select 
the principle or principles on which he wishes to build his 
design, and he is to combine with the square any of the 
figures of the previous lessons—the vertical, the horizontal, 
or the oblique. 

The predominating colors should be blue and violet. The 
teacher may, however, allow the use of one or more additional 
colors for the design, since the six standard colors have been 
covered with this lesson. 

A lesson on tone relations may be given after the six 
standard colors have been used. As a type lesson for work in 
black and white, let the children draw two squares on white 
paper, then mount one on gray paper and one on black. 
The effect is to be considered and discussed. 


264 


NO.4. OBLONG 
REVIEW OF COLORS 


1 BUILD OBLONG 


oe 


eee! ION 


| aaa 


SALTERNATION 


4 PROGRESSION 


ae ee ee 


5 AX(AL BALANCE 
sie 
[| [el 
6 CENTRAL BALANGE 
| 
=| AS 
| [] 


. 
Oblong Examples Illustrating Lesson No. 4 in Design. 
267 


Lesson V—Triangle 


The triangle is to be used, and may be combined with 
one or two of the figures in previous lessons. Dots also may 
enrich the patterns. 

The children may choose for decoration any of the follow- 
ing objects: a tile, the cover of a medium-size square or 
oblong box, a candle shade. These may be decorated with a 
border design or with a centre design, using axial or central 
balance. 

The related colors are to be used, and black may be added. 


268 


NO,5 TRIANGLE 
RELATED CQLORS 


TORAW TRIANGLE 


L\ 


2 REPETITION 


RNAS 


SALTERNATION. 


LV AVNY 


& PROGRESSION 


Be LV /NAN L\ A 


SAXIAL BALAN GE 


/\ 
ie 


GCENTRAL BALANGE 





Triangular Examples Illustrating Lesson No. 5 in Design 
269 


Lesson VI—Circle 


Let the children make a design for a round or square 
cushion or a round or square centrepiece, using the circle. 

The first design should be developed in circles only. Dif- 
ferent sizes, arrangements, and colors should be considered 
and drawn. 

A second design should be made, combining the circle with 
figures in previous lessons. 

When possible, a museum or large house should be visited 
and the arrangement of circular forms with other figures in 
good designs observed. 

These arrangements should be drawn from memory later, 
but the pupils should have no drawings before them when 
inventing their own designs. 


276 


NOG CIRCLE 
COMPLIMENTARY COLORS 


1T DRAW CIRCLE 


>, 


eomere Wt TION. 


BOMO® 


SALTERNATION 


BOO) OOO 


APROGRESSION. 
b f SS 
sy Y v y v 
Soo, CL) oo. Geooo Oe) oo 
5SAXIAL BALANCE 


4 


J O Qs 
Silas. 


6 CENTRAL BALANCE 








Circular Examples Illustrating Lesson No. 6 in Design, 
271 


Lesson VII—Semicircle 


Let the children invent a design for curtain or dress ma- 
terial, using the half-circle. With it may be combined the 
circle, the square, or the triangle. 

Call the children’s attention to the half-circles in their 
drawings of flowers and fruits, the crescent moon, and to 
half-circles in good examples of design. Let them invent 
from memory an all-over design for the scarf or dress 
material. 

The colors used should be choice of either a warm or a cold 
sequence. 


272 


NO.7 HALF CIRCLE 
CHOICE OF COLORS. 


1 DRAW HALF CIRCLE 


» > 


2 REPETITION. 


Gdd@ 


SALTERNATION 


ISDScD 


eee 


ON Ye I ay 


IAKIAL BALANGE 


CID 


6 CENTRAL BALANGE 


Half-Circle Examples Illustrating Lesson No. 7 in Design. 
273 


274 THE ART OF SEEING 


TypE LESSON FOR THE PRIMARY GRADES 
Clay Bowl 


In choosing the design we want to use, we must remember 
not to have a pattern too small for the size of the bowl. We 
want the design to stand out clearly. If the lines and dots 
were too small, we would have to take the bowl in our hands 
to see the pattern; and if it was standing on the sideboard, 
we would not be able to see the design at all. 

We must also remember not to make the border too wide 
and heavy for the size and shape of the bowl. If we did, the 
heavy border would appear to change the good shape we had 
modelled. 

To look ordered, a border must be divided from the rest 
of the bowl by a band. We can put on the edge or margin of 
the design two heavy lines or two narrow lines, or, perhaps, 
three lines. Find out which is best for the pattern you have 
chosen. 

Now our patterns are complete on paper and exactly the 
size we want for the bowl. 

We will take a sharp modelling tool and draw the design 
on the bowl as neatly as we can. 

We must watch our pattern closely and keep our lines and 
spaces even. 

It will be fun to ees a bowl that you have made and 
decorated yourself from the very beginning. 

If you cannot make it look exactly as you would like the 
first time, because your fingers do not obey you when you 
tell them to draw in an orderly way, keep the thought of 
what you want to do in your mind and you will soon find 
that your hands are able and willing to carry out your 
thought. 


ELEMENTS OF DESIGN 275 


APPLICATION OF LESSONS IN DESIGN 
Suggestions for the Intermediate Grades 


In the intermediate grades the seven lessons in Design 
are to be given in the same sequence as in the primary grades, 
but with a broader application and with more complicated 
problems. The knowledge gained in the primary classes of 
the five principles of Design should make it possible for 
pupils to invent richer and more intricate patterns in the 
intermediate grades. 

The children should have acquired the habit of keeping 
in mind the principles of order when making a design or 
finding material for one in nature or in works of art. The 
possibilities or limitations of the subject, as well as of the 
medium, should also be instinctively considered by them. 

When possible the drawings to be conventionalized for 
Design should be from nature—fruits, flowers, trees, birds, 
and animals of all kinds. The final drawing of a memory 
sequence, also, will serve as the basis for a Design. Both the 
period for memory drawing and that for nature study can be 
closely co-ordinated with the work in Design. The way this 
material is conventionalized will vary as the pupils them- 
selves vary in imagination and ingenuity. 

All holiday material, such as Christmas plants and Easter 
flowers, should be drawn from nature, directly and by 
memory, before being conventionalized for holiday cards, 
etc. In this way fresh designs will be brought to old subjects, 
and the mere repeating of a commonplace rendering will be 
avoided. Even conventionalized holiday symbols, such as 
eggs, chickens, and rabbits at Easter, will have new life when 
they have been drawn from nature or from memory and 
conventionalized without direct reference to the drawings. 


276 THE ART OF SEEING 


The boys will invent designs for the objects they make in 
manual training; the girls will invent simple patterns for the 
clothes, towels, bags, etc., they may be making in their 
sewing classes. For both boys and girls a room in a house may 
be chosen for decoration—perhaps a bedroom—and a list of 
subjects named for the application of design: toilet set, 
brush and comb tray, bureau scarf, bedspread, cushions, 
rugs, lamp shades, bookcases, writing table, book ends 
desk pad, etc. In a problem of this sort much material can 
be found to interest the pupils. 

No suggestions for conventionalizing should be given by 
the teacher. All the comment should be reserved until the 
pupil has expressed his idea, and should then consist of 
suggestions as to how the idea might be more adequately 
expressed. 

It must be repeated that definite intention is necessary — 
for fruitful invention in design. When it is not possible 
directly to apply the design to the object, the thought of the 
object to be decorated must be held in the mind. A design 
unconnected with its application to a specific object or 
material is meaningless. 

In order to enrich the pupils’ thought, visits to museums, 
manufacturies, and special exhibits for the study of textiles, 
pottery, jewelry, etc., are essential. 

It is suggested that much of the practice work done for 
design should be with the brush, as this means gives greater 
freedom and rapidity. 


Type LESSON—INTERMEDIATE GRADES 


Linen Runner 


We are going to decorate a linen runner which can be used 
in a number of ways. 
It could be placed on a long narrow dining room table, 


ELEMENTS OF DESIGN Q277 


used for a sideboard cover with the ends hanging down, or 
for a bureau. 

As its purpose is both useful and ornamental, we must 
decorate it so well that we will never tire of the design and 
will enjoy looking at it every day. 

Most of our dining room tables are not long and narrow. 
If we use the linen for an ordinary table we will put a border 
around the edge because every inch of it will show as it lies 
flat on the table. For the other purposes mentioned a design 
on either end where the runner hangs over would be effective. 

If the piece of linen was shorter and meant to lie flat 
on a bureau covered by many objects, the design would be 
differently planned. 

We first decide on our medium. Would we rather use 
stencil or apply a design in another material or color ? What- 
ever design we make will be greatly influenced by the kind of 
medium we use. 

We will make our design with stencil this time. 

Now let us consider whether we want a motive repeated 
once or twice at the ends of the runner. Or do we prefer a 
border—at least on one side of the linen where it will be in 
view ? In such a case if we choose a border, it can be wide, 
as it will be plainly seen. 

Next, we will decide whether we want the border to be 
made up of single motives or a pattern of sequence—some- 
thing that carries the eye along. 

As stencil is to be used, a repeating pattern would be 
suitable. 

We will now consider what principle of design would best 
serve our purpose, motives of Alternation or Progression or 
a motive of Central or Axial Balance—the border will carry 
the principle of Repetition in any case. 

Let us try a border of sequence choosing the combination 


278 THE ART OF SEEING 


of square and triangle. We will add lines if we wish to enrich 
our pattern. 

Now, we are ready to draw, each according to his own 
idea, until we exhaust the possibilities for the time and begin 
to select from them the design we are to use for the runner. 

Let us have in mind—the width, the length, the changing 
of one line, the grouping of two or three motives—the increase 
or decrease in the relative size of one or more shapes; the 
choice of a heavy bordering line or of two single bordering 
lines. 

At the end of the lesson we have many patterns. Three 
designs are selected from which to make a final choice that 
will be by the vote of the class. 


ELEMENTS OF COLOR 


Color is an emotional experience. How far it goes toward 
the well-being of humanity on the physical side, or even 
what the relation of light is to human life, are problems not 
as yet solved. We take light as a necessity and color as its 
flavor, we enjoy our color as we do the taste of our food. 
The study of such a sensation offers many difficulties, for 
though we may know much of the physical cause of our 
feelings and our own personal reactions, our measures must 
be mental ones and involve personal choice. There is no 
special physical reason why one color should give us any 
greater emotion of pleasure than another of the same in- 
tensity, yet we have definite color preferences, both personal 
and racial. 

It is natural that quantity of light should attract, and 
every normal person sees it in varying degrees which can be 
physically measured. If we add color we are bringing with it 
an element of personal choice, which refuses to be stand- 
ardized. The causes of our sensation, however, may be 
analyzed and color used deliberately to arouse emotion, even 
though the reason for the reaction itself may be obscure. 

We all know that the sensation of light is caused by a 
small group of ether waves to which the nerves of the eye are 
sensitive. These waves, taken together, give the sensation of 
white light. Color is not an addition to white light, but a 
portion of it—a single light wave, or any fractional combina- 
tion of all the waves, that gives us the sensation of white. 
Black is the absence of light and is a negative term. We 
use the word cold in the same way, not as a positive thing, 


but to describe a lack of heat. 
279 


280 THE ART OF SEEING 


There are three simple color sensations which taken to- 
gether make white, but which are like the chemical elements 
and cannot be subdivided. They are the primary colors: red, 
blue, and yellow. The other colors we know are combinations 
of the primaries. A complementary color is only a remnant 
of the spectrum, the remainder of the white light after a 
special color has been taken from it. The two together must 
always make white. The complementary of red would be a 
combination of blue and yellow, or green, since that is the 
color they make when they are mixed together. 

There is a considerable difference in the loss of intensity 
between the combining of light and that resulting from the 
combination of pigment; for, while light would show but 
little diminution in the combination, pigment would lose 
intensity to a considerable degree. 

The three primary pigments mixed together will give a dull 
gray, which is a true white of low value. It has no color, 
because it contains all of the colors and is what we call a 
neutral. 

As a matter of convenience to the painter the various 
colors are classified into the warm and the cold hues; the 
warm being at the red end of the spectrum, and the cold at 
the violet. These are the few physical facts that it is neces- 
sary to know about color in order to handle pigment intelli- 
gently. They have nothing to do with any mental effect 
that color may have on us. 

In order to understand something of the psychological 
side of color, we must draw on general and, in most cases, 
subconscious experience. We speak of seeing a color, but we 
have practically no experience of a single color unassociated 
with others, one color filling our entire field of vision. A 
single color may hold our whole attention, but we see many 
others about it at the same time, and our light sensation is 


ELEMENTS OF COLOR 281 


as complex as the sound that reaches our ears in a chord of 
music. If the notes in the chord change, our sensation 
changes with them, just as a color will change with altered 
surroundings. 

We may be sure that an apple on the table will retain its 
apparent form if joined by an orange, and subsequently by 
an onion, or even a carrot, but the color of the apple will 
depend on the company it keeps, and we will find that the 
quality of the red will change in its association with other 
colors. Color is a complex sensation, and this fact must be 
taken into account whenever we are in search of causes. 

We have also to allow for our personal ability to respond 
to the physical cause. So far as the light waves themselves 
-are concerned, they extend beyond the spectrum at both ends 
and might give us the sensation of light, if we were furnished 
with the means to receive them. What we get physically 
—and there is considerable individual variation at this point 
—rceords itself mentally, where it is again modified by all 
kinds of personal inabilities and inhibitions. 

We may have faith in our own eyes, but there is more 
doubt about the eyes of another. Fortunately this is not a 
matter of first importance, for we have other grounds of 
meeting in addition to those of absolute sensation. What- 
ever red may be in itself, its relation to blue is a fixed thing 
and felt alike by most people. The relation is more definite 
than the objective facts. It is on this point that we would 
begin the study of color. ‘ 

When we try to put any sort of color experience into words 
we meet at once with a difficulty. We may say the tree was 
very green, and bring to the mind of our listener the thought 
of vivid greenness based on his personal experience and 
having little or no relation to our own mental image. To 
characterize more closely, by name and comparison and 


282 THE ART OF SEEING 


further appeal to experience, would only serve to complicate 
matters and in the end still leave our emotion undescribed. 
It cannot be done. Our brilliant tree might disappoint us 
entirely if robbed of its neighbors, or of the sky, or even of 
the old barn which it was trying to cover. How is it possible 
to put such an intricate situation into words or any other 
arbitrary symbols? Imitation, perhaps, would be our refuge, 
but even that simple resource is not as possible as it would 
seem. 

We do not imitate color, for it is color itself we are using, 
or misusing, as the case may be. The responsibility is wholly 
ours. The line between form and color must be sharply 
drawn. We represent or suggest form, but color is the cause 
of an emotion, whether its order is directed by us or is a part 
of our visible world. | 

The point at issue is our idea of order, and our object is 
not to convey a thought but to raise an emotion. Order is 
in itself a relation, so ordered color is color that follows as a 
result of some natural law which imposes the inevitable 
changes. 

The source of daylight is the sun, which gives us a white 
light, divided and reflected by the various material objects, © 
according to their nature. If we take another source of 
illumination, these same objects will respond and their color 
will change accordingly. The color of an object depends on 
the source of light. The painter’s term ‘‘unity of color” 
means color that is consistent with the source of illumination. 
The color of objects at noonday, for example, is very dif- 
ferent from what it will be at sunset. The reason is that in 
one case we have white light with all its possible subdivisions, 
and in the other only a portion of it to be divided among the 
objects in sight. 

Matter has power to absorb only a part of the light rays 


ELEMENTS OF COLOR ; 283 


falling on it, leaving a remainder to be reflected. That 
remainder we see as the color of the object. As any division 
must depend on what is divided, we must refer to the source 
of illumination to judge our color sensation at any given 
time. At noonday the light is white, and it is possible to 
find all of the colors of the spectrum in the objects about 
us. The red light of sunset, however, is itself a fraction of 
light. Ifit were a pure red no other color in Nature would 
be possible, since red is indivisible. The objects in sight 
are the color they seem to be at the time. Their hue is a 
capacity to absorb and reject light, and not an inherent 
possession of color. . 

The division of color with reference to the source is 
_ termed ‘‘color unity,’’ which is the simple mathematical 
statement that the sum of all of the parts must make the 
whole. As each day varies a little in its quality of light, 
due to changing conditions of moisture and cloud, the prob- 
lem of unity is always a new one, and even two gray days, 
seemingly alike, will show distinctive color variations. 

Unity of color and harmony are of different orders. 
Harmony is a color association agreeable to our senses and 
has no necessary connection with a common origin of the 
colors in question. Under no circumstances could a sunset 
world be lacking in unity of color, though there might be 
doubt as to its harmony and acceptability. Harmony or 
dissonance may be used as the occasion demands, but if the 
object is to represent in accordance with the laws of color, 
the unity of light must be preserved. 

When we turn to the personal effect that color has on us, 
the first fact to consider must be the influence of surround- 
ings on hue. A square of red on a field of green will change 
its apparent hue if blue be substituted for the green. Evena 
change in color quantities will have its influence, and we are 


284 THE ART OF SEEING- 


forced to the conclusion that the actual color sensation is 
determined by the relation of colors rather than by the facts 
themselves. Every color association gives its special sen- 
sation, just as do any two notes sounded together. 

The painter’s problem is to adjust the different colors in 
such a relation to each other as to give the total color sensa- 
tion he is in search of, and he does it in much the same 
manner as the piano-tuner who tries his notes until they 
are relatively right. The relation of the larger color divi- 
sions of his picture he calls the color values, and they are in 
effect what we all see as color when we look without a 
.centred interest. 

If we ask a child about the color of his picture he will say 
the trees were green, the sky blue, the rocks red, the water 
dark blue, and so give the main color facts. That would be 
quite enough in its way to characterize the different parts 
of the picture, but it would fail to tell anything of the condi- 
tions of any special sunny day. These conditions would be 
described by the relation of the four colors, which would be 
fixed by the source of light, as has been explained. The 
trees would be green under any ordinary circumstances, but 
green is only a word that roughly classifies, and is like say- 
ing the town is in the northwest corner of the State. The 
light of the day orders the trees to reflect light. They have 
none of their own, and can only send back part of what has 
been given them. So it is with the other colors in the pic- 
tures. They are bound together like members of a family 
owing allegiance to a common source. 

The impulse of a child to color his drawing in a few flat 
masses is a sound one. He does not see minor gradations, 
but gets a general color reaction unhampered by lesser 
things. This is from ignorance, but it has an important 
bearing on the facts, for if we of greater experience and 


ELEMENTS OF COLOR 285 


sophistication were really to trust our eyes, without inter- 
ference from our large store of information, we would find 
that our color sensation comes from but a few color masses, 


much like those seen by a child. We kn o much to be- 
lieve what we see, and c t_ourselves in th seein 


only what we know. 

As a proof of the fact that color is generally seen in masses 
we may appeal to memory and try to describe the color of 
some place we have in mind. Unless our attention for some 
reason was fixed on a color spot, we will be able to recon- 
struct only in the most general terms. Even then it is 
likely that the image will be somewhat of a composite, 
proving in its turn our habit of generalization. If such is 
our habit of sight, it would be the logical means through 
which to appeal to our sight emotions, not because there 
is no more to be seen, but because that is our way of seeing. 

There is a charm to the association of a few colors. We 
feel it in children’s drawings and in Japanese prints. We do 
not like our color relations too mixed, any more than we 
would like so great a number of notes struck on the piano 
simultaneously that no relations could be distinguished. The 
effect would be the merging, of colors or of notes as the 
case may be, and the loss of their relative values. The 
painter sometimes takes advantage of this fact in making a 
single tone of several unmixed colors—a broken tone, as he 
calls it—but his object is to give the tone a slight instability 
to the eye and the feeling of vibration due to differences 
subconsciously noted. If the differences are so apparent as 
to attract the attention, the effect is lost. This is the reason 
why many a picture is unintelligible to the public, for there 
are passages in technic that are intended to be felt rather 
than seen, and they are not adapted to meet the rigors of 
a physical examination. 


286 THE ART OF SEEING 


The technical methods of the painter are often mistaken 
for an objective statement when his intention may have 
been of another sort. The blue shadow has been received 
with much scepticism by the public at large, and even color 
such as the painter sometimes uses is accepted with much 
reserve. The fact of the case is, a shadow out-of-doors on a 
sunny day is always of a colder order of color than the light, 
no matter what color it may actually be—the painter’s use 
of blue is the statement of that important fact, rather than 
the record of a local color. The triumphant person who 
finds a blue shadow without the assistance of white light 
has discovered a color foundling. Under normal conditions 
there is always a difference in order between the light and 
the shadow; in moonlight the lights are cold and the shadows 
warm, as is also the case indoors. Special conditions may 
modify this statement, but it is the general way of light. 

In the days of the Barbizon school this fact was unknown 
or disregarded. The pictures of that time were based on 
harmony of color, which was more a matter of good taste 
than observation and limited the color sensation to a con- 
siderable degree. The drama lay in form and chiaroscuro, 
and the pictures were left without the full emotional values 
that color might have given them. At the present time when 
we follow Nature’s laws our range is much greater and we 
limit ourselves only to unity of light. 

There is an arbitrary use of color which neither represents 
form nor follows any laws except those of emotional excite- 
ment. This use is personal and depends only on the quality 
of the individual chiefly concerned. It is a legitimate stimu- 
lant, and the test that can be applied to it is that of the 
successful attainment of the object. 

We must recognize that color has the same emotional effect 
on us as rhythm or vibration of any sort, whether mechanical 


ELEMENTS OF COLOR 287 


or in the form of sound. Such ‘sensation is quite aside from 
any thought or association of ideas and is as much a part of 
us as motion is of mass. 

There is an essential difference between the teaching of 
the use of color and the teaching of drawing. The color we 
use is the real material. We are building our play house of 
genuine bricks—the green we use for our tree in the picture 
is as truly color as that which the tree shows us: we construct 
with reflected light. Drawing, however, is a language; it is 
symbolic. Color is food for what is sometimes called the 
color sense; we study how to combine our elements and 
to measure the emotional effect. But we have one unknown 
factor to allow for in the Personal Equation. If we could 
measure the Personal Equation, Art would become a Science. 

The logical place at which to begin to develop the color 
sense is at the point of some general preference. It is not to 
be. expected that delicate color and subtle gradations will 
attract at first, even were they noticed. We turn our atten- 
tion first to bright color, strong contrast, or brilliant light, 
as do children and primitive peoples, and it is not to be 
assumed that this untrained liking stamps the impulse as 
an inferior one. It is, like the large vision of ignorance in 
the matter of color values, a basic thing in which the quality 
can only be found through knowledge. 

Brilliancy of color may be increased by the association 
of the complementaries. This fact leads immediately to the 
most important characteristic of color—its dependence on 
its surroundings. The point may be made easily, for it 
is demonstrated best when the colors are few and the 
children’s natural impulse is to be satisfied with few varia- 
tions. If it can be shown them that a change in one of their 
masses seems to affect the others, the way is open to the 
appreciation of color. 


288 THE ART OF SEEING 


Where early work is concerned, whether it be by children 
or their elders, the number of colors in the picture should be © 
limited to a half dozen at most. This gives training in various 
directions. By reason of our habit of sight, it is possible 
to characterize whatever we see in a few colors. The color 
variations we find on close examination are lost in our 
general impression, and if unskilfully used would only 
destroy it. The effort required to reduce many small colors to 
an average tone is training in itself and opens the mind to 
fresh impressions. 

Technically, it will be found that a small sketch from 
nature, in which the color is reduced to a limited number of 
related tones, will gain a look of completion by drawing and 
modelling the edges of the different color planes. The forms 
are suggested sufficiently to be intelligible, and the color 
sensation is fully given. Above all, when dealing with a 
few colors it is possible to obtain a unity of effect, which is 
one of the conditions of sight. 

The mixing of color is a simple matter and requires little 
attention beyond a few general directions. It is better to 
put the full weight of the instruction on color as a sensation, 
rather than on its more mechanical aspect. 


INDEX 


Action figures, 21, 25, 27, 44 ff., 89, 93, 
TOS, 172, 173, 203, 207, 211, 214, 222 

Adults, 15, 24, 27, 32, 186, 187 

Age of reason, 32, 36, 52 


Cause and effect, 17, 26, 33, 34, 37, 38, 
40, 49, 150, 211 

Color, 21, 26, 53, 154, 175, 204, 208, 215, 
221, 223, 256, 257, 279 

Color relations, 21, 28 

Comparison, 58, 69, 98, 102 

Composition, 21, 26, 174, 231, 233, 243 

Continuity, 23, 42, 51 


Design, 21, 27, 28, 47, 69, 174, 204, 208, 
213, 215, 221, 223, 244, 247, 255, 258, 
259 

Dewey, John, 13 

Direct drawing, 188 

Direction, 6, 21, 25, 58, 69, 76,.77, 81, 
83, 207 

Dramatization, 42, 43, 44, 75, 81, 144, 
204 


Emotion, 21, 24, 26 

Examples for: 

Action figures, 97, 99, 100, 102, 106 

Every-day perspective, 109, 114, 
ELS, 110, 120, 122, 124; 125, 127, 
128 

Line stories, 58, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 
250, 252, 253 

Measure, 70, 71, 72, 74 

Vertical and horizontal, 82, 83 


Froebel, 205 
Games, 42, 61, 62, 76, 205, 244 
Horizontal and vertical, 21, 25, 27, 43, 


Semeeteel 72-203, 211 5'213, 2Y7,/222; 
249, 260 


289 


Imaginative drawing, 21, 28, 106, 2009 

Information drawing, 26, AG 13 2uL 7D, 
E7Owe12 

Intermediate grades, 45, 85, 178, 107, 
198, 199, 201, 217 

Intermediate grade teachers, 161, 167, 
275, 276 


Kindergarten, 25, 28, 30, 45, 62, 85 
Kindergarten teachers, 143, 203, 255 


Leonardo da Vinci, 1, 19, 55, 87, 191, 


229 

Light and shade, 21, 26, 29, 45, 49, 153; 
WY Por ee Oe ee 

Line, y; 27, 60 

Line stories, 6, 7, 21, 25, 26, 27, ete 
O27 OO ML Io egos noO7,. 210, 2035.07 7, 
22 ier 24oP250, 252.0253 


Means, 22, 25, 26, 28, 140, 165, 166, 174, 
204, 205,212; 215 

Measure, 6, 21, 25, 27, 43, 58, 59, 75, 
E72) 2071207; 230, 213,257,207 

Memory, 26, 45, 47 

Memory drawing, 21, 26 ff., 45 ff., 40, 
132, 134, 141, 142, 143, 144, 176, 178, 
188, 204, 208, 212, 214, 220 

Modelling, 16, 26, 47; 49, 148, 149, I50, 
177 

Motion, 21, 25, 44, 61, 64, 89, 92, 93 

Museums, 16, 29 


Perspective, 26, 27, I10, 173, 214, 220 
Practice, 10, 85 

Primary grades, 30, 85, 146, 150, 195 
Primary teachers, 210, 254 
Proportion, 21, 26, 93, 98, 99 
Purpose, 3 ff., 17, 32, 47 


Reconstructed images, 146 
Results's22, 30,45, 2023, 4207, 210; 213; 
217, 221 


290 , _ INDEX 


Sargent, Walter, 150 Type lessons, 34, 62, 75, 143, 146, I50, 
Schedule: 181, 255, 250, 257, 259, 274 
Abnormal, 199, 201 Type months, 193 
Normal, 195, 197, 198 Type weeks, 195, 197, 198 
Stories: 


Type years, 197, 201 
Action figures, 99, 100, 102, 106 Ado Dataad cE 


Every-day perspective, 115, 

Line stories, 6, 7, 25 ff., 62, 64 ff. Value, 157 . 

Measure, 70 ff. Vertical and horizontal, 21, 25, 27, 43, 

Vertical and horizontal, 83 ff. 76, 81, 172, 203, 211, 254,;2my ees 
Supervisors, 22, 51 249, 260 











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